Yadonushi
by Fate VII
Summary: Seven hosts. Seven stories. Bakura has both and is willing to share with Ryou, especially when these stories might explain why Ryou is faced with the prospect of having but one hour left to live... [finished]
1. Seven

Fate: This will have a prologue and seven chapters. That I can tell you now. And since I'm being barraged with ideas, I think it's going to go fairly quickly. This story's about Bakura and his multitude of false hosts, the evilishness of some, the weirdness of others, and ultimately, the nasty ends that they all met at our favorite tomb robber's hands. 

Disclaimer: Oh, all right. Yu-Gi-Oh is Kazuki Takahashi's. Not Fate's. Really. Even though everyone here seems to believe the contrary.

&

How do you start a story?

Especially one like this?

I'm not sure. It's painful to do, that I'm sure of. Dragging the story out, dredging up all the hated memories, feeling my skin crawl and my body tense in a way it hasn't done in so very long...

Maybe I should start with the present, before I regress so far back I might loose myself...

"Hikari?"

"Yami?" There can be no doubt he is what I have called him. His identical looks, his opposing personality, the family name so very much like my own, and the Ring mark us as bonded for eternity and beyond. 

And I know--know as I could never know with any of the others, no matter how much I tried--that he will always hold a piece of me, and I of him.

I'm soft about him, perhaps. But I have reason to be. I can be cruel to the world and to myself and to life in general, but I don't bother with the illusion of evil in front of him. 

I am but mere shadows, mere wishing, mere dreams.

"Um..." I crack my knuckles, a nervous habit I've kept for all my countless millennia of popping in and out of existence. "I'm...starting to be afraid...that..."

"What's wrong?" Ryou immediately rounds the couch and sits next to me. He has good reason for doing so. I never profess my fear unless there's a damn good reason.

Like now.

"It'll be seven years at midnight," I say haltingly. "Seven years since...since you got the Ring."

"It's been a long time, hasn't it?" Ryou comments softly. "But why are you afraid?"

I swallow. "You...you're the seventh."

"Excuse me?"

"You're the seventh person to wear the Ring. The seventh person to have me. And...for every person who wears the Ring, I get one more year with them, for better or for worse, before..." My voice cracks. "Before I _know_ if they're really destined to have it, or if they're just pretenders," I blurt out, putting my head in my hands. 

Ryou blinks. "I don't understand." But even as he says it, we look at the clock. 

One hour.

One hour until my bloodstained hands might become a little redder.

"I..." I start, fail miserably, clear my throat, and try again. "I'm...attached to you," I begin, nearly choking on the words. "And I..."

"What?" Ryou prompts.

That simple word drags the whole thing out of me. "And if you're a pretender and not my soulmate then when it's midnight I'm going to have to _kill_ you!" I burst out, ending on a near-scream.

"What?!"

Inhale. Exhale. It's not needed since I'm not alive, but the ritual of breathing soothes me. 

"I get a year for every person who wears the Ring. I stay with the first person a year before the Judgment, the second person two years, and so on and so forth," I say, forcing my voice to stay calm. "Seven years are up for us at midnight. And..." I look at the ground. "I _know_ you're my hikari. I never truly _knew_ with the others, but I'm still afraid. They never specified that I wouldn't kill you...just that pretenders to the Ring would in the end be punished. But...once someone puts the Ring on...even if they never again wear it, they're marked for death. That's...it happened," I whisper. "And...I'm so tired of killing people that I..."

"That you love?" Ryou finishes quietly.

I nod and swallow, my eyes stinging oddly. "I'll murder to protect someone, I'll murder for myself, but this is..."

"We have an hour," Ryou says. "And then we'll have a lifetime after that," he adds reassuringly. 

"Do you...?" Breathe. I don't know how to finish the question, but I have to.

I have to finish the story that it begins.

"I need to tell you...about the other six," I finally say. "I _have_ to. You should...you should know. You should know why I am the way I am. Before..."

Ryou leans into me almost unconsciously. "Then I'm listening," he replies.

I close my eyes. "There's just one thing you'll have to remember, Ryou."

"Yes?"

"Some of these people I loved. Some of them I hated. But in the end, I killed them all. And it might be you that I next destroy."

_.y.a.d.o.n.u.s.h.i._

%

Duel: Review. Really.


	2. Micky

Fate: Whoo! Go me and my updating prowess! *tries to get everything done before Pennsic* Loving Doctor Jekyll will probably go up tomorrow night, and Reborn to Die has hit the point where major plot changes occur, so I need to do some rewriting. Hopefully I'll finish before Pennsic, though! 

Disclaimer: We don't own it. Now read.

&

"So tell me," Ryou urges softly. "It'll help. I promise."

Odd, that he's the one reassuring me. I should have thought that it would be the other way around, the way things are going right now. "I know. I told...once I knew what was going on, I told some of them...and it helped. A little," I say, studying the rug with forced fascination. "But some of them..." I clench my fists. "Some of them I _relished_ killing."

Ryou laughs, and the laughter is only slightly hysterical. "You haven't changed much since then, yami."

"I know..." I knot my fingers in my hair, ripping some of the fine strands out of my scalp. It hurts, and the pain grounds me, makes me focus. "I loathed my first host," I blurt out. "I didn't hate him. Hate is too close, too personal. Hate makes me want to get in there and kill them. I didn't...not him. I just wanted him so far away from me that we'd never even have the potential of coming within a hundred kilometers of each other, ever again."

"Why?" Ryou inquires.

"His name was Micky, I think, and he was a kid when he first put my Ring on, just like you..."

...

I blinked. I was lying on the ground, like I'd been flung across the room. I ached like it, too.

...why couldn't I remember what I was doing there?

"Mommy! Mommy! My necklace exploded! Mommyyyyyyyy!"

"Darling, what is it?" A woman's voice. Cultured. Egyptian, but accented. "Oh my...darling, why don't you go outside for a bit? I...there's something in here that needs to be done in private."

"But Mommy...who's that?"

"Mommy will tell you in a minute, dear. Go on." It sounded like the woman was kicking the whiny kid out. Good. My head hurt too much for me to deal with his complaining.

"Who are you?" Sharp now. Ow! She kicked me! The bitch...

"I don't remember." Did I say that? I can talk?

"Where did you come from?"

"I don't remember." I don't. That's odd. I think perhaps I _should_ remember.

"You're lying."

"My head hurts." There. That's the truth, certainly. Ow! And now my ribs hurt; she _kicked_ me again! "Stop that!" Automatically reach for my knife--

I'm carrying a knife?

Apparently so, because she screams. It hurts and I say so.

In return, she gathers up her courage and kicks me in the head.

_"I'm Bakura, tomb robber extraordinaire and the cause of your execution," I rattle off with a mocking bow and charming smile before I vanish into the shadows..._

_I'm wearing enough gold jewelry to make me at least fifteen pounds overweight and carrying even more, laughing as I dodge and vault the bodies I left behind, fleeing from the ruined tomb..._

_Screaming, kicking, fighting, snapping with my teeth and clawing with my nails at my captors as they tie me down and pray over me, writhing and shrieking as my soul is torn loose and someone stabs me in the center of the chest, burying the knife to the hilt. My coat's blood-red to hide injuries..._

I flung myself to my feet, screaming, clutching my head. "What did you do to me? Where am I? What did you _do?"_ I cried out, tearing at the walls and flailing helplessly against nothing, writhing and convulsing in my mad agony. "Not me not me not me not _me!"_

The woman's running out of the room now. 

I curled in on myself, whimpering with my arms over my head and my knees drawn up to my chin. I still hadn't opened my eyes. 

A whiplash bit into my shoulder. I yelped and rolled away, shrinking into a corner and shielding my face. I gradually opened my eyes.

_Shit._ What looked like the entire indoor household was ganging up on me. All were armed, some more effectively than others. The whip holder was advancing on me again.

I pressed myself back against the wall and wished that I was in my hole in the sand, covered with desiccated boards, dirt, and _more_ sand. I was safe there. People could stand on the boards and never know I was there...

The whip lashed right through where I'd been and scarred the wall behind me as I vanished.

I gasped and sat up. I was in a locked stone chamber, with the floor covered in sand and soft rugs. The walls were lined with all my favorite weapons and some of my favorite pieces of treasure.

"Where...where am I _now?"_ I gasped, lurching weakly to my feet and looking around incredulously. I staggered to the door, unlocked it, and wandered outside. 

And found myself huddled next to the whiny little kid who'd woken me up.

"Mommy! He's _my_ age! Is he my friend?"

Blink. _Huh? How am I the same age as some little brat?_

I look around warily, then down at myself. My clothes are loose on me, and--how can I have missed this?--the ground is closer than it should be...

"I've changed," I whimpered. 

"Sorcery! Look! Listen! He appears out of nowhere and vanishes into nowhere as well!" someone said. "His voice is not like ours! He is pale!"

_I am? I know my hair is silver, but--_ I automatically looked at my hands, and my mental voice died. 

My skin was bleached to white once more.

I screamed and leapt away frantically, scrabbling for the safety I knew was gone.

"His teeth are an animal's! And his eyes--they are so red! He can't be human!"

"I want him to be my friend!" squealed the kid, attaching himself to me. "I'm Micky, who're you?"

"A famous tomb robber." I couldn't resist bragging, even though I didn't know where I was or what was going on. "I'll loot all the royal tombs yet, and I'll never be--" I broke off in the middle of my usual speech which I reserved for dramatic escapes when it sank in. I _had_ been caught, and I'd been killed...

I tore my coat open and stared at my unscarred chest.

"I'm...alive?" I whispered.

Then I blinked. If I was untanned, and still alive, then maybe...

I traced the scar on my cheekbone--or I tried. It was gone.

I promptly threw my head back and started laughing wildly. "My identification marker gone! Ra's touch on my skin erased! I've cheated death! I'm alive...and the pharaoh won't know me now! He'll have no idea it's me...Yami, you bastard, I've won!"

"Yami?" Everyone crowding around me drew back in consternation. "The...the one who destroyed five cities in a final battle?"

"Oh, that's right, he _did_ do something like that, didn't he?" I asked carelessly. "Stupid of him." This was blasphemous, intoxicating...wonderful.

"But...o spirit, that pharaoh has been dead for centuries..."

"What?! How can he be dead? He put me in--" I stopped and stared intently at the little kid--Micky, he'd called himself. "He put my soul in that thing," I said, pointing at the necklace he wore. It was a hoop holding a pyramid, on which was etched an eye. Five points dangled off of the lower half, and a leather cord was fed through the upper half. 

_The Millennium Ring, he called it...a Ring to trap me forever, a maze I'd never escape, he said...and he _laughed_ when I screamed..._

"I _am_ a spirit," I said with some surprise. And more than some fear. "Well...well, at least Am'mit will never eat my soul," I said shakily. 

"Are you gonna be my bestest friend? To play with me forever and ever and ever?" Micky demanded, tackling me and screaming into my face.

Gods above, how those words would haunt me.

Every day after that for a year, the stupid brat hammered on the door of what I began to call my soul room. He never thought to put the Ring back on so I could be physical again, but I didn't much care. Refuge was easier to seek in his mind than in the outside world. I could bar the door and cover my ears and polish my gold and wish myself out of this eternal torment.

I don't know what that kid did to me, but it made my soul rebel on the basest level possible. He treated me like his own personal slave, his toy, his possession...I wasn't human, I was 'my spirit' or 'my thief' or whatever he felt like calling me that day. I almost forgot my name, I almost forgot my profession, I almost forgot everything but that I was owned body and soul and that I wanted my bratty little master _dead._

And I got my wish at the end of a year.

I heard tapping at my soul room door. Not Micky's enthusiastic hammering, just polite tapping. I didn't move. Didn't do anything. Just lay there with my arms over my head, the perpetual tears of exhaustion and fear running down my face. I was stripped of all dignity, of all sense of self. What did it matter if I cried?

The tapping stopped, to be replaced with a swishing noise and the sound of feet on sand.

Someone picked me up off of the floor and brushed my unruly hair out of my face, gently drying the tears that were streaking my hollowed face. "This may be the only time that you will consider my visit a mercy, or it may be so always, but now, I think I am as a god to you." It was a man, a tall man with curly black hair and orange-red eyes. He was carrying a golden set of scales with an eye carved into it, an eye that resembled...

I looked at the Ring that weighed heavily around my neck. It had appeared there sometime over the year and I'd never taken it off...

It was the same eye.

The man nodded. "I am what you are, yes, but I still have duties. We both still have power...power from these," he said, taking one hand from my shoulders to heft the Scales briefly. "And in time, you may learn to use it." He smiled. "I tell you all this now because you may loathe me when I next see you."

"I don't loathe anyone but Micky," I said tiredly. "I barely remember anyone else to loathe."

The man's expression was oddly gentle. "You will, I'm sure. You will."

"If...if I'm supposed to loathe _you_, then...what's your name? And why are you here? How did you get in?" I ask, my curiosity stretching painfully after a year of disuse.

"My name is Kaisei, I can be wherever you are when my duty requires me to do so, and...and I am here to judge those who wear the Millennium Items and to engineer or supervise the termination of all pretenders." He sighed. "It's not a pretty job, but I must..."

"Pretenders?"

Kaisei put an arm around my shoulders and drew me out of my soul room. I was too weak to fight, even if I had wanted to. 

I blinked and found myself standing in Micky's bedroom, in the real world. It was midnight.

Kaisei snapped his fingers, awakening Micky instantly. 

"Potential pretender who may have desecrated the purity of the Millennium Ring, I now put you on trial. If you are truly the one destined to wear the Ring, as you may well be owing to the fact that you have not been incinerated upon your wearing of this sacred item, but you still may be a pretender and unworthy to continue life. If you are thus, then this servant of Seshat will terminate you immediately following your Judgment," he said indicating me. "Are you ready to be put on trial?"

_So I am a servant of the records and of fate,_ I thought. 

Micky rubbed his eyes. "Is it a game? Oh...my thief! Have you come to play with me?"

As he spoke, black smoke ghosted from between his lips and clouded on one end of the scale, which sank.

"And are you ready to seal his destiny?" Kaisei asked me, orange-red eyes hooded.

"If he is a pretender, let him die by my hands," I found myself saying. Equally black smoke drifted from between my lips and formed a glimmering ring on the other end. Micky's end of the scales didn't move towards being balanced at all.

"You have been Judged as a pretender," Kaisei said sadly. 

I looked at my left hand. There was a knife in it. 

"I don't mind murder," I said as I plunged the blade into Micky's heart, right up to the hilt. 

"You may not always feel that way," Kaisei answered.

"You know, that's what they did to me," I said, looking at the knife in Micky's chest, at his dead eyes. I could feel myself dissipating from the feet up, and oddly enough, it didn't bother me. "They stabbed me here," I said, touching my heart with a hand that fizzled and went right through my chest. I looked up at Kaisei. "Will I see you again?"

"When your second host has completed two years with you, we will meet again," Kaisei told me quietly.

And then I was lost to the Shadow Realm again, mindless and bound in blackness...

...

Ryou blinks at me. "You'll dissolve if I die?" he asks.

"I always did," I reply. 

"I never...I never tried to own you like that, did I?" is his second question. 

I shake my head and smile, slightly painfully. "No."

"And...and did Yami Yugi really laugh when you were dying?" Ryou blurts out.

I stare at the far wall. _The kid's attached to his friends, too..._ I remind myself. _He likes that pharaoh, but I don't know why. No accounting for taste, apparently..._

"He was considered a god," I say carefully. "And what I did back then was one of the worst things a human could do. I angered the gods and condemned myself to...to hell, I suppose. And the pharaoh hated me, because I got away with everything I wasn't supposed to and no one could catch me. He still hates me. Just our luck that we ran into each other, this incarnation. It doesn't always happen that way, or it never did. All of us yamis...we seem to have all found our hikaris at once, you know. There's something...something big going on here."

"I see," Ryou says. He sounds...oddly sad. "Were all your hosts...that bad?"

I think of my second host--oh, Hathor, my second host--and laughs, though the sound is painful and almost wrenched out of me. "No. Hathor mark my words, no." I smile, but the smile is warped and twisted. "I said I loved some of them..."

%

Fluffy: Dewd. Fifteen reviews for the FIRST chapter. Arigatou gozaimasu, minna! *faints*

**yugiohluver**: Sugar! Whee! First reviewer--thankoos!

**Melissa:** Bakura's going to rush. Or something.

**Imperial~Monster**: Yeah, I know, he's a tad OOC but then again, wouldn't you be?

**Kyoko-san**: Yay! I have creeped someone out! *dances*

**Kit**: Shwee. Fun is good. Fun is your friend. ^_^ And glad to know I'm on your potential-fave-author list. ~_^

**Rumpole**: Thanks!

**Yuki-chan:** Bakura goes 'poof'? And all the fangirls and fanboys kill me?

**Dragona 2007**: Soo...whaddya think?

**Wingleader Sora Jade**: *ducks shotgun* Kyaaa!

**R Amethyst**: But I wuuuuuub the idea of past owners, chwee~e?

**Dark Millenia**: Um...dun cry...kudasai? It's not that bad...I hope?

**A Ferret Called Silver**: 'Yadonushi' means 'host', usually in the parasitic sense of the word--Bakura uses it to refer to Ryou in the manga (I think).

**higashikaze**: You can never review too much. *grin*

**PanDora**: Yay for interestingness!

**Saturn Imp**: Apparently, so did I...

Duel: You know you want to be like the others...c'mon, follow the trend, review in a frenzy...*begins hypnotizing the audience*


	3. Zane

Fate: Arr. This story is more annoying than I thought it would be. _

Disclaimer: We. No. Own. Are you mentally deficit or something?

&

I laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and I'm getting a bit hysterical--_more than a bit_, I think giddily, and it all seems so--

Ryou, with amazing perspicacity, slaps me.

I close my eyes tightly, then open them, blinking rapidly as I raise my hand to scrub at my face. I rake at my cheekbones with my nails, grounding myself with the pain.

"Yami? Yami! Oh my God..." Suddenly Ryou's climbing into my lap and grabbing my wrists, forcing me to stop my self-mutilation. My fingers are knotted together and I can only think idiotically, _He should eat more._ His bony knees bite into mine, sending a dull ache to my brain. Still, he's oddly light...

"Anubis have mercy on us," Ryou whispers, his eyes flicking briefly upward. Normally, I'd have rolled my eyes, sure that the gods were ignoring _me_ at least, but now I'm desperate for all the help we can get, an odd state for me. "Look, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"I want to," I whisper, but there is no truth in the statement. "I _have_ to," I add, the truth finally slipping from between my lips. 

"Did you have to tell the others?" Ryou demands. 

I sigh. "Once I knew...I told. And sometimes...sometimes they didn't believe me," I remember aloud.

"I can believe _that_," Ryou mutters.

"You don't believe me?" I ask fiercely, shaking his hands loose from my wrists and grabbing his shoulders, my nails biting into his skin. 

Ryou doesn't flinch as one of my fingernails parts the skin, oddly enough. "I believe you," he says softly. "You wouldn't care so much, or fake caring so much, unless you had no control over it. You lie without emotion. It's how I tell your lies from your truth. You lie to everyone, all the time, so no one else knows. They have nothing to balance your lies against. I _know_ when you lie."

"Shit," I remark, feeling almost like myself for a brief moment. This one instant of normalcy brings laughter to my throat, rising like bile. Ryou sees this and immediately claps one hand over my mouth, bearing the pain my tightening fingers are inflicting on him without seeming to recognize it. 

"Talk," Ryou says softly. "Talk and talk and talk, because I can't do a damn thing for you but to listen." He slowly removes his hand. "Talk. It hurts you. Just tell me and it might hurt less."

...

I opened one eye hazily. My mind immediately screamed at the motion. _No no no no no no no! Not again, not again, oh please not again!_

Blue eyes blinked before me. I heard a voice, but I didn't understand the words...

_Help me,_ I whispered mentally. _Someone up There have mercy on me, and end it! I won't be a slave again!_

The blue eyes jerked back as though their owner had been bitten. I dared to open my other eye.

A young man, taller than I remembered being when I'd been in Egypt--was I still there? I didn't know--and heavily muscled was surveying me with confusion and interest bordering on fear. His black hair was combed back into a horsetail, leaving only a few short hanks to fall over his tan face. He looked to be in his late teens, older than I'd remembered being. Two leather cords bit into his neck. One held blue feathers woven into blue glass beads, and the other--

The other suspended the Millennium Ring.

I promptly flailed to my feet and threw myself at the wall, wild to escape the servitude I knew was coming. 

I fell straight through the wall and crashed lightly to the ground, my limbs rattling loosely in their joints. 

More of the unintelligible language reached my ears. The man burst out of the house--it _was_ a house, wasn't it?--and knelt by me, talking loudly in that incomprehensible tongue. I didn't much care, though. I was staring at the ground, elated and horrified at the same time. 

There was no sand. The ground had green bits sticking up out of it, green like I'd only seen near the Nile. The distinctive murky smell of the Nile wasn't pervading the air, only a tangy, dark scent that came directly from the ground. 

_I'm not home,_ I marveled internally. "Where am I?" I asked aloud. 

I heard a started but foreign reply from the man crouching next to me. _For Ra's sake, talk in a language I can understand!_ I screamed internally at the man, not expecting an answer.

Of course, I got one anyway. //Why do I keep hearing him--I _think_ it's him--up here?// was the perplexed response. 

I sat up and glowered at the man to hide my consternation. He could hear me? I could hear him? We weren't even _talking!_ At least, not in a language the other understood.

Or were we...?

/Do you understand me?/ I thought pointedly, trying to make myself heard. It felt like fire and ice down my spine to talk like that...

//You're a spirit! You must be!// was the near-hysterical reply. //You speak no earthly language, you walk through walls without a scratch on them or you, you're in my mind, you--I'm _talking?!_//

I looked over at the wall I'd fallen through. True enough, it was fully intact and so was I. I glared at it in a futile gesture for a few minutes, then turned back to the man. He was staring at me in no small amount of horror. Good. Fear. It was about time that I found myself in charge in one of these situations...

/No earthly language? Me in _your_ mind? I was just thinking and _you_ replied,/ I sneered. /And I don't know how you witched the wall, but I--/ I slammed my hand casually into the ground, then gaped down at my fingers, panic choking my words off in my throat.

My hand had gone clean _through_ the ground. I'd felt no impact. I felt nothing at all but shock. No dirt pressing on my skin, no _nothing_. I jerked my hand back up and stared at it. No dirt marred the skin. I was pale again, I noted, pale and sickly, in my old clothes that fit like they used to. I'd grown to slightly over my old size. I was no longer a small child, but most likely the same age as the man in front of me. I nervously tugged the red fabric closed over my chest and the Ring dangling conspicuously on my front, then scowled into the middle distance, loathing of my fear thick in my mouth. I'd let one domineering little brat influence me and destroy all I'd been, all I'd made myself, and I was fading away...

Fading...

I looked at--no, _through_--myself. I was a faded wraith, a lifeless, lackluster spirit with bleached-sand hair and skin, a monster with its will sucked dry and its mind corrupted forever...

/No, no, no, I will _not_ let him do that to me!/ I screamed. "No!"

I suddenly felt heavy, glued to the ground in one swift jolt, which came racing up to meet me and--

I blinked. I was warm. I was dry. I was relatively comfortable. I was confused as all hell. "What...where _am_ I?"

//Can you hear me?// I noticed in a sudden rush that there was someone weighing down the surface I was on to my left, and it had been there all along...

I yelped and rolled away, almost falling off of the soft thing and hitting the floor, flailing wildly as I did so. I probably would have been eating floorboards if the man hadn't grabbed me and pulled me back next to him. I tensed, waiting for the right moment to escape...

//Can you hear me?// he repeated, looking steadily down at me without blinking or making any sudden moves. I knew then what a cornered animal felt like. //I swear by my honor that I will not harm you. I won't hurt you. Can you hear me?//

/Yes,/ I finally answered. 

The man smiled broadly. //Oh, good. So we _can_ communicate,// he said, sounding relieved. 

/So we can,/ I answered warily. Well, at least he wasn't jumping on me and ordering me around. Yet.

//Why are you afraid?// the man asked perceptively. //You're the spirit. It is I who should be afraid,// he mused, sounding puzzled. //But I'm not afraid. Not at all. Not of anything, really.//

/You're not?/ I asked incredulously. I simply couldn't comprehend a life without fear, having lived the way I'd done. /You're not afraid at all...of anything?/

The man considered. //Well, I suppose that there are things that make me nervous to think of, but I'm not afraid at the moment, no.//

I stared.

//I see I've startled you,// the man said wryly. //I don't suppose we could ignore the fact that you seem to be a telepathic spirit who popped out of nowhere when I put on my new charm and observe the proper niceties, but I'll try. My name is Zane.//

I looked again at his Millennium Ring, then down at my chest where my jacket had fallen open again. The glimmering hoop hung there, mocking me. 

_When your second host has completed two years with you, we will meet again..._

I swallowed. I knew, deep in my heart, that I was forever tied to this cursed golden charm, and that any fool enough to put it on risked death...

Or maybe...maybe it was just Micky...

/I am Bakura,/ I said slowly. /The tomb robber that evaded even the pharaoh and death itself, doomed to curse those who wear my Ring and do not deserve it./

//What, like me?// Zane asked, looking amused.

That wasn't the response I'd expected. /I don't know. I won't know for a while./

Zane shrugged. //Then why does it matter?//

I returned the shrug. /I don't know if it does. What happened to me?/ I asked, changing the subject quickly before the sinking feeling I was getting made me feel any worse. 

Zane looked slightly concerned as he thought back. //You started screaming something in here,// he said, tapping his head, //then you ended with something out loud in your language. And then you went all solid and knocked your head on the ground, really hard. I didn't know if you'd ever wake up, or if I should let you sleep, but since you're a spirit I didn't know if you could die. But you're all right now, aren't you?// he inquired gently, peering closely at my face.

I felt...odd when he asked that. Like I'd swallowed icy needles that were shattering and lancing into my veins, and I felt so cold and yet I was burning...

/I feel...weird,/ I said shakily, averting my gaze from his face. 

//Describe this 'weird'.// Zane pushed me back onto the soft thing, still keeping me half-pinned under him. He was studying me with curiosity and worry and something oh so familiar from those lecherous guards who'd--

I swallowed a whimper and tried to glare balefully at Zane instead. The expression failed pitifully, and I found myself staring at him instead, and the lust in his face was overpowering everything else. It was unfounded and strange and it looked like it belonged there, not making a mockery of him like it had those guards...

The ice burned in my veins, searing me with cold as Zane shoved my shirt open and back, kissing me relentlessly, running hands and mouth and teeth over my face and body. And oddly enough, resistance was the last thing on my mind.

I must have been freezing to the touch, because Zane was practically scorching my skin with every fleeting moment of contact, running fingers down my spine and over every bone brought to the surface of my skin by way of emaciation. Fire wound around me, and then I was lost and screaming, writhing in his arms and confused and amazed that there was no intention to hurt or to own in his touch, just...fire and ice.

_Is this meant to be? I don't know. I'll never know. I'll never truly know. Not even if he's Judged. I'll never know...but hell with philosophy, I want..._

Later, Zane simply held me against him, silently communicating a complete lack of interest in letting me go. I didn't much care, to be honest. It was probably the first time I'd ever not minded being held somewhere.

//Did I hurt you?// Zane whispered in my mind, the first coherent thing he'd said in a long time.

/Yes,/ I replied blissfully. /Will you...again?/

//This is so...this is so...I just...we just...you're a _spirit_ from inside some cursed piece of metal, and...and I just _met_ you, and I'm supposed to find a nice girl and get _married_--//

I promptly bit his collarbone to shut him up, drawing blood and licking my predator's teeth. /I'm a blaspheming thief from gods know how long ago, and I...and no one has _ever_...no one has ever made me happy like this,/ I said lamely. /You want what's supposed to happen? What's supposed to happen is that I'm dead and you never met me. Fuck that,/ I said eloquently.

//Again, you say?// Zane replied, prying my mouth off of his neck and tilting my head back.

/Oh, Hathor, please,/ I whispered plaintively, not caring how much my weakness showed, and gave myself completely up to the fire.

I never cared how weak I was in front of him. I never cared about anything with Zane. All I could think about was all the things I'd suffered through diminishing, and that Zane...I think he loved me, and I...I couldn't name what I felt, but maybe it was something along similar lines.

I led a sheltered life, losing all notion of time, staying awake by night and sleeping by day, being dizzy and not thinking of the future, two twisted lovers not meant to be. In the back of our minds, we knew that this wouldn't last, wasn't meant to come out, and we clung to each other all the more frantically for it, spending all our time together in perfect accord, leaving no room for any disharmonious element.

So when I woke up at midnight one night with the familiar but forgotten gut-wrenching fear rushing through me in cold eddies, staring at Zane as he whispered, //Two years, Bakura. It's been two years. You feel it too? Like something's going to happen?//

_We will meet again..._

/Zane...Zane!/ I screeched, panicked. /Two years...we only have two years! And they're up!/

//Bakura, talk sense,// Zane said reassuringly. //Tell me slowly and carefully what's going on.//

/I'm not having a nightmare!/ I screamed, knowing that it was what he thought. /The Judgment.../ I began, going on to breathlessly describe my tortured year with the little brat Micky and the bloody end he'd met at my hands. /I'm going to have to kill you,/ I choked out. I'd never killed anyone like Zane before, never killed anyone who made me feel...

I felt Kaitei appear in the room as Zane looked at me with amused disbelief.

I rose jerkily and crossed the room, someone pulling the strings to move my limbs and make me walk. Zane followed me with his eyes, confusion and skepticism showing in his eyes as Kaitei steadied me.

I looked back at Kaitei. "Why...?"

Kaitei's face was startlingly blank. "Why not? Are you so sure that he is a pretender?"

"I...yes...no..." I said, looking at my hands. I could almost see the old bloodstains, making my tanned, cruel hands tawny red in an odd counterpoint to the golden skin. Then the illusion faded, and my hands were white and delicate again, unsullied by blood. "In the end, I return to my true nature," I said softly. "I am always a killer to get what I want."

"Do you want him dead?" Kaitei inquired.

"No," I replied. "But I have no choice in what I want. I am a tool of the Ring, a mere machination so that it will find its true host. I'm its puppet, put into place by a malicious pharaoh with too much free time and too much hatred."

"We seven are all puppets," Kaitei told me. "There are seven of us, seven with power, power that only one of us will ultimately control. We are puppets drawn to our puppetmasters, who will then fight for the world."

"Why can't _we_ be the puppetmasters?" I demanded fiercely. "Why can't _we_ control these?" I tugged on the Ring angrily. "Why can't I stop myself from killing him?"

Kaitei turned away from me, looking directly at Zane. "Potential pretender who may have desecrated the purity of the Millennium Ring, I now put you on trial. If you are truly the one destined to wear the Ring, as you may well be owing to the fact that you have not been incinerated upon your wearing of this sacred item, you will be granted eternal life and a wealth of power. However, you still may be a pretender and unworthy to continue life. If you are thus, then this servant of Seshat will terminate you immediately following your Judgment," Kaisei said softly, gesturing to me. "Are you ready to be put on trial?"

Zane must have somehow understood Kaisei, because he said something that sounded like an affirmation.

Black smoke whispered from his mouth and settled in a cloud on one of the pans of the Scales.

Kaisei turned to me. "Will you seal his destiny?" he said.

_No!_ I screamed, fighting for control of the malicious Ring around my neck. "If he is a pretender, let him die by my hands," my mouth said as my mind scrabbled for the power to subdue this ancient magic. A glimmering black ring settled on the scales. Zane's smoke vastly outweighed it.

I was still kicking and screaming mentally as I plunged the knife that materialized in my hand into Zane's heart. The look of betrayal on his face only kicked me into a wilder frenzy.

"I _will_ master the Ring," I gritted out, dipping my hands in the blood and closing Zane's sightless blue eyes. I began licking roughly at the red goo on my fingers, the blood running in rivulets down my dissolving hands. "I'll master them _all!"_ I swore in a snarl. "They'll all bow to me, and _I'll_ pull the strings! I'll rule the fucking _world!_"

Blackness followed this statement, searing it into my soul--

...

Ryou's ice under my fingers. I can't feel him at all, but I know he's there...

"And then you started a one-man quest to conquer the world," he says. "I...I understand, now."

"That was only the beginning," I assured him. "And I _will_ conquer the world. I've lost so much...I deserve my own planet. I deserve something of my own, something that will never leave me."

Ryou smiles suddenly. "You have me."

I close my eyes against that sunny smile, which bites me to the core. "Do I?" I ask. "I don't know. I lost all certainty of anything after Zane. I lost everything to him, and the one who came after did her best to decimate what wasn't there..."

%

Fluffy: Jeez, this thing is popular.

**yugiohluver**: SQUEE! Plushies! *puts them in her Giant Plushie Pile* Glomps and pocky for oo!

**malik'sgurl**: Thanks! ^_^

**Gyakutenno Megami:** I think everyone's wondering that.

**Dracona 2007**: Micky was eeeeeevil. *shuddertwitch*

**R Amethyst**: Oh my Ra, she's psychic!

**A Ferret Called Silver:** School in twelve days!

**Sailor Comet**: THANK YOU!! *waves and gives pocky*

Duel: *skates out, wielding the Evil Sharp Pointy Review Stick of Doom, herding Random Terrified Audience Members before her with a maniacal grin on her face* Mwa. Ha. Ha. Review and BOW BEFORE ME!


	4. Aya

Fate: Ehehhe...well, when I said 'weekend', I meant, y'know, my _long_ weekend. Which ends today. So, uh, here's the update. 

Disclaimer: We're tired. We're not going to fight for it. You do that.

&

"What do you mean?" Ryou asks softly, looking up at me. For a moment I can't see him, only long red hair and gold-gray eyes and freckled cheekbones, but then he snaps back to being white and silver and platinum and pale. My head is spinning, confused and tortured in the wake of that brilliant smile the mirror of its predecessor's--bright and starry and oh-so-malicious, even if he can't see it...

"She smiled like that, when I first met her," I muse aloud.

"She?" Ryou inquires softly. "You had girl hosts too?"

I nod, closing my eyes briefly as the three females parade across my mind's eye.

"You didn't turn into a girl?" Ryou inquires. At any other time, this would have provoked an indignant screech and an immediate couch-cushion fight, since he would have followed it up with some form of insult. Which, of course, I would normally counter. But now the words simply fall sick and flat between us. 

"I only changed relative to their age, since time was immaterial for me. All other physical aspects stayed the same," I specify.

Again, this could have been the start of a cushion fight that ended in the most physically compromising fashion...in an alternate reality where I wasn't mentally making a list of where all the knives were and considering how best to temporarily get them completely out of my access. 

"Yami," Ryou prompts, his eyes flicking to the clock on the wall. 

I blink, then avert my eyes from his face. "I know."

Ryou shifts slightly, uncrossing his legs from under him and allowing the feeling back into my feet. I resolutely ignore the trickling, fiery sensation washing up through my ankles and open my mouth.

...

I woke up screaming, raving for blood, snatching wildly at the knives under my clothing and flailing at everything around me. I distantly heard a shriek as I hit something which fell away with a splash of something warm, then all was silent except for the pounding of my blood in my ears and my own hysteria. 

I blindly crashed into things, sometimes falling through them, my eyes closed tightly in a futile effort to arrest the pattern of gold hoops and glaring eyes dancing on my eyelids. 

I don't think I knew I'd been knocked unconscious until I woke up again with a blinding pain behind my eyes.

My lids drifted apart, revealing a blurry reddish shape crouching over me. I felt the pressure of someone kneeling on my chest, forcing the Ring to bite into my chest and shocking me back into reality. Equally awakening was the screaming in my head.

//Don't you _dare_ go back to sleep, don't you fucking _dare!//_

/How did you learn how to speak like that so quickly?/ was my dazed reply.

//Is there another way to get through to you?// the figure hissed. //You're a spirit. You speak no earthly tongue, fiend, and all who lift their voices in your presence have their souls eaten.//

I blinked hazily. The red figure began to consolidate into a person with long red hair gripping something in their left fist. 

//Don't just bat your eyes at me, spirit!// was the furious reaction. //I can exorcise you if I must, by using the power in this cursed necklace! I am the worthy one, as all others who tried to wear it were eaten by darkness! I deserve to hold it, and I will master it and you!//

The blurriness was fading from my vision, allowing me to see that it was a young woman kneeling on my chest, with sections of her red hair tied up in hanks around her face. The item in her left hand was a spear, held inexpertly near the blade and pressing into my throat.

I tried to lift my arms and felt pain pricking up from my collarbone. Warm blood streaked down my neck as the woman snarled, //It's no use reaching for your weapons, spirit. I stripped you of them while you lay defenseless in your stupor, and while you are in this sacred room, you can do no magic against me.//

Her finality and temerity to rob me while defenseless collectively galled me into action. /Oh?/ I asked, searching in my mind for the sensation of having as much body weight as air. /Can't I?/

The feeling caught and held--

The woman crashed to the floor, falling through my insubstantial form. Her ungainly descent snapped the spear shaft as she fell clumsily on it. I scuttled back, away, and to my feet. I forced my body to regain mass, stumbled slightly, and reeled forwards into a table. My weapons were fortuitously lying upon it, and I snatched at them and slung the belt that held them across my shoulder. 

The woman dragged herself to a kneeling position and glared up at me, clutching the piece of spear that held the blade defensively. //Foul creature,// she spat. //I will not speak to you and sell my soul, much though you try and provoke me.//

/I don't want your soul,/ I returned. /I want the rest of _these_,/ I snapped, briefly pulling the Ring away from my chest. /All others who have worn it were pretenders to its power and unworthy to control me,/ I goaded her. 

Her face twisted into ugly rage. //I am worthy.// She stood up and took a step towards me, brandishing the spearhead. //There are more sacred talismans with power?// she asked breathlessly.

/Seven,/ I told her, watching for her reaction. /I want them all./

//_I_ want them!// she retorted. //I deserve power after this dismal life. Little incantations to heal a sick pet, a few stitches to close a moderate wound, any of that can be done by a simple healer. I have the capacity for greatness and that greatness will never be reached while I'm stuck here in servitude to this horrid tribe! I am a prisoner of war, forced to exploit my powers for these heathens. The power belongs to me!//

/Do you want them destroyed?/ I asked, slightly maniacally. 

_I want to kill things...I want life to be crushed in my hands...I want to be GOD..._

Her eyes narrow. //Yes,// she says, her assent a hiss. 

I extend my left hand to her, palm up. /I want what you want, and I will kill without remorse./

Her hand darted out and seized mine. //Spirit, bow to my will,// she ordered. 

I laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed until the anger on her face had fallen to fear and confusion. /An exchange of names and your wishes will be my command,/ I gasped out between bouts of tearing, near-hysterical laughter. /But I will never bow to your will when it is not mine as well. Remember this...?/

//Aya,// she said, her nails biting into the back of my hand as she interlaced our fingers. 

"Sell your soul to me, Aya," I taunted her aloud. "Bakura is my name...Bakura the thief untouched even by a pharaoh's wrath."

Her eyes narrowed. //You speak a language long dead.//

"_I_ am long dead," I replied. "You understand me?"

//Perfectly.// 

"Say my name, Aya. Say it and seal it," I order her, my fingers digging into her skin as well.

She lifted her chin defiantly, then raised her eyes to mine and stared directly at me. They were mismatched — one gold-brown and one grey. "Your will as my will, Bakura. Slay my captors and bring me power," she said haltingly, her feeble command over my tongue not hiding the mad lust for ultimate control.

"Your soul is mine, Aya," I told her mockingly. "Even though I don't want it. I'd give you my heart, but it's not there for me to give away," I lie flippantly. "And my own soul belongs to the great Lady of Judgment and her trinket to keep me in line."

"But it's not your Lady who's wearing this 'trinket', and your heart is never yours to give," Aya responded, a cruel smile lighting her face with an unholy glow. "I'll take either as collateral from the person who owns it."

"Do I owe you a debt already?" I asked.

Aya's lips curl to show her teeth. "You may."

A shout came from outside, followed by a man poking his head into the room from a door to the left of Aya.

Rage crossed Aya's face as she whirled to face the intruder. She held out one hand angrily in a banishing motion. The man shook his head stubbornly and seemed to be about to take a step into the room.

//YOU WILL NOT ENTER!// Aya screamed, both in voice and mind. She flicked the wrist of her already-outflung hand angrily, sending shadows to envelop the man. They wrapped around his face and limbs, dragging him to the floor and beginning to dissolve him.

"What did you do?" I asked, wondering how this woman knew more about this cursed Ring than I did.

"Nothing more than to inflict what any pretenders would bring upon themselves," Aya replied casually. 

I laughed again. "You have no idea what _real_ pretenders must face."

"I may yet," Aya said slyly. "And I may yet not. But I think we have a while before I know, am I right?"

I nodded.

"Then free me from this prison. I have yet to be outside these walls since my capture," Aya said, heading for the door. She stopped and extended a hand back to me without looking. "Coming, thief?"

"That's only one of my titles," I replied with a small smile.

"Tell me another," Aya said as she drew me outside and down a street.

A woman charged at us, raising a basket and flinging it at Aya with an angry yell.

I didn't think, merely acted and summoned a creature unseen on the material plane since the days of Yami.

"Demon-tamer," I answered as the Man-Eater Bug rose above us. "I learned to summon demons from the priests who tried to stop me in my endeavors."

"Demon-tamer," Aya purred as the Bug masticated the woman who had threatened us. "Anything else?"

I flicked one of my knives out and balanced it between my knuckles, loading the gaps between my other hand's fingers with raven's feet. "Murderer was a common one," I replied, turning sideways and glancing up and down the street. /Down./

Aya ducked as a crossbow quarrel whistled through where she and I had been. Aya growled and gripped her makeshift dagger angrily, spiderwalking back off the path and angling herself to lunge at her attacker.

"I was called hot-tempered," I continued, flicking a raven's foot into the throat of the man before she got too close. She straightened and glowered at me. "I was also called cold-blooded," I remarked. "Odd, that."

"Stop taking my kills," Aya said through clenched teeth.

I smirked. "I _am_ a thief. Come take them back from me."

//Down.// 

I hit the dirt as Aya leapt clear over me and tackled another man to the ground. She drove the spearhead straight into his eye, then went again for his throat and heart, stabbing wildly as blood sprayed over her.

"That man is dead," I said idly.

"I...don't...care..." Aya replied tensely. She jammed the blade in one last time, then jerked it free and rose to her feet. "I want to slaughter them all. They don't kidnap and enslave a mystic without getting at least a little payback."

"That's where my Man-Eater Bug comes in," I reminded her, waving the beast forwards through the streets. Another scream that was abruptly cut off signified that some unsuspecting civilian had met a grisly end. 

I could but smile.

"We're home free, you realize," I told her. "You can go."

"I wanted to see this place in flames," Aya said disconsolately. "Can't you summon a demon to do that?"

I felt my mouth curve into a smile as I searched inside, drunk on the new power that I'd discovered in me. "Yes, I can..."

I passed my hand along a row of wooden houses, fire trickling in a wake from my fingers. I brushed past everything flammable, touching and poking at random items as I went by. Aya held my other hand and guided me out as my sight began to blur red again, with purplish-black hovering in my peripheral vision. She caught me as I fell...

"This is becoming a habit," Aya said, her hair falling in sticky clumps across her bloodstained face. 

"It is." She pulled me to my feet and I looked at the rubble behind us.

"You're useful to me, Bakura," Aya said decisively as she tugged me away across the plains. "But that doesn't mean I'll turn a blind eye to you. One false move to me and you'll be back in the spirit world."

"I'm not your puppet," I hissed, memories of being moves to kill as if on strings racing through me in sick waves. 

Aya laughed. "Aren't you?"

I whirled and grabbed at her neck, her laughter washing over me as she skipped back out of the way. "Touchy, aren't you, my little pet?"

"I'm not yours," I retorted. "You're _mine!"_

"Sure, pet," Aya said smoothly, walking up beside me and draping an arm across my shoulders. "Of course. I sold my soul, didn't I?"

We traveled across the endless stretches of green stuff that Aya called 'grass', following her vague directions in search of her former home. After an interminable time traveling, we finally happened upon a gate surrounded by guards. 

"This is it," Aya said, satisfaction in her voice. "I know this is it. I was only four when I left, but I'd know this place anywhere."

"What about them?" I asked, nodding towards the guards. 

"What about them?" Aya parroted carelessly. "I'm their lost mystic. They'll love to have me back. Having a mystic bound by birth to your city is always a prize."

"You're not bound to anything but me."

"Oh, I am, am I?" Aya replied archly. She strode ahead of me over to the guards, her hair flying out in a rippling dark banner behind her. She spoke to the men at the gate. They didn't reply. She spoke again, more impatiently. She sighed and put a hand on the knife hidden at the back of her belt, opening her mouth to speak again--

One of the guards put out a hand and pushed her hard in the chest, sending her reeling back towards me. She fell clumsily at my feet, then leapt up once more and snapped out her weapon, advancing with her free hand held out. //Bakura!// 

/What?/ I answered.

//This...this isn't...these aren't my people,// Aya stammered. //My city has been conquered.//

/And?/ I inquired. 

//And what?// Aya screamed angrily. //They've killed everything of mine in the years I've been gone!//

/Then why don't you do the same for them?/ I pointed out.

Aya screamed again, this time aloud, flinging her arms out helplessly and falling to her knees in front of the guards. //I can't! I just can't!//

This was very disconcerting. Aya wasn't the type to collapse screaming when defeated. After gods knew how long it'd been traveling with her and living in her mind, I felt I could safely say that. And it wasn't a show for the guards, because the worst of it was all in our minds. 

/Get up./

Silence. 

/Aya, get _up_!/

Aya shook her head mutely. One of the guards sighed impatiently and stepped forwards, raising a spear not unlike Aya's original weapon of choice.

/That is _it!_ AYA!/ I screamed. /You're _useless!_/

//...I know...//

I stared at her blankly for a second--

Then the world went red.

I gaped at the spear sticking through my chest, then angrily forced myself to brief insubstantiality, wrenched myself free of the spear, and jerked it out of the offending guard's hands. I promptly whirled and sliced at the head of the guard going after Aya, then jerked my redheaded host to her feet and ran for the gate.

"Aya!" I yelled at her as we screeched to a halt in front of the gate, my closing wound spraying blood. "Aya, _talk_ to me!"

"I always dreamed of coming back here and ruling," Aya said haltingly. "I always wanted to rule, you know. And with your mystic power, it would be so much easier. But now...now..."

"Now we have to kill them all first," I said carelessly, scanning the gate and running over the incantations in my mind. _"Ookazi!"_

A gout of fire burst out and melted the metal, opening a path for us and obliterating the guards on the other side. 

Aya's hazy eyes cleared slightly with their screams. "Make them suffer."

"Do you think they're wealthy?" I inquired as I summoned my Man-Eater Bug with the mental equivalent of a practiced flick of the wrist. 

"Would you like to rob them, pet?" Aya asked.

Normally I would have spazzed at hearing the loathed nickname, but her use of it obliquely reassured me. "Blind."

Aya's knuckles were whitening from her grip on her broken-off spearhead. "Good," she hissed. She raised her free hand to her neck and pulled a necklace off, one-handedly untangling it from the Ring and holding it in front of her. "Above all else, I am the mystic bound to this city, and I will defend it even when it is lost," Aya said, sounding as if she were speaking to herself rather than to me. The lumpy bits of clay and rock strung together began to glow faintly as she whirled them around, then began emitting sparks. 

"One massacre, coming up," I said, raising another monster to the physical plane to do my bidding.

"Can I learn to summon demons like that?" Aya asked distractedly as her sparking beads emitted a jet of light that turned a charging horde of men into ashes. 

"Probably," I replied. "I learned by having priests cast them at me one too many times. I'm in your mind, you should be able to manage it."

Aya closed her eyes, her beads sparking and glowing in her limp hands. I could feel her opening the door of my soul room and searching inside, but I wasn't sure that we could afford to stand there and wait for her to figure it out. I grabbed her hand and towed her body along the streets, searching for somewhere from where we could base our attack. Some treasure wouldn't be amiss, either...

We raced through the rapidly deteriorating city, my demons surrounding us and savaging anyone who dared approach. //Pet?// 

/Aya?/ I asked, backing into a building corner and ascending a flight of stairs backwards. 

//I've got it!// Aya's eyes finally opened and she regained her balance neatly. She began whirling her beads again, gold sparks flying in every direction possible. The Ring began tossing and glowing equally brightly on her chest. "_Endgame!"_

"Oh, no," I whispered as the air grew purple-black and heavy. "Not--"

"Exodia," Aya said softly, and flung her hands out, narrowly missing hitting me.

The world went dark.

I woke up buried in rubble and covered in bruises. "Pet?"

/Aya,/ I croaked, not wanting to move my mouth. /Ow./

One of the rocks was moved off me, then another. "Silly pet. Why don't you just go invisible or whatever it is that you do?"

I thought about it. My head hurt. "Mrrr...no."

Aya giggled. She sounded almost drunk on power. "Pet, don't you understand?"

"What?"

"We're the only two people alive in this entire city. I have my rule! People will come to see the devastation for miles, and we'll make them ours! I am the ruling mystic at last!" I was dragged roughly to my feet. "I've got everything I want!" I barely had a glimpse of Aya's wild, gloating grin before she turned abruptly pale and collapsed onto me, knocking us both over.

It wasn't long before Aya recovered and set about reconstructing her city, summoning demons and recruiting locals to do the work until she was well on her way to ruling a healthy city.

It also wasn't long until I woke up with a horrible sense of foreboding, and also with a sense that someone was standing over me and had been watching me as I slept.

"Kaisei," I whispered. "Not again."

"Loathing, love, and...?" Kaisei asked, eyebrows raised as he brought me to my feet.

"She's more human than any of the others," I found myself admitting.

Kaisei laughed. "Only you could say that about her. Your standards of humanity amuse me," he said as he drew me out of my room and into Aya's. 

"Pet? What's--?" Aya broke off, staring at Kaisei. "What real pretenders may face," she whispered, repeating words spoken three years previously. 

"Potential pretender who may have desecrated the purity of the Millennium Ring, I now put you on trial. If you are truly the one destined to wear the Ring, as you may well be owing to the fact that you have not been incinerated upon your wearing of this sacred item, you will be granted eternal life and a wealth of power. However, you still may be a pretender and unworthy to continue life. If you are thus, then this servant of Seshat will terminate you immediately following your Judgment," Kaisei said softly, looking at me. "Are you ready to be put on trial?"

Aya raised her chin defiantly, the clumsy beads that had brought down a city glinting. "Try me, as queen and reigning mystic Aya."

Black smoke came from her mouth. 

"Will you seal her destiny?" Kaisei asked me.

_Fight it...fight it..._"If she is a pretender, let her die by my hands," I said automatically. 

_How weak can I get?_ The smoke from my mouth was insignificant compared to Aya's.

"I'm not real?" Aya gasped as the knife appeared in my hand.

"No," I said as I stabbed her.

Aya's hands convulsively closed around my arms. "...love you, Bakura." She kissed me, leaving blood on my lips, then died with a mocking smile on her face and her customary anger in her half-lidded eyes.

"But...but...you _can't!"_ I stammered, stumbling back from her body. I tripped over nothing as my limbs began fizzling away. "I was so close..." I said to Kaisei.

He nodded gravely. "And you will just keep getting closer...but this is one magic you will never conquer."

"Why?" I demanded.

Blackness.

...

Ryou is staring at me. "You can destroy everything just like that by summoning Exodia?"

I nod. "More or less."

He sighs and crawls back onto my lap, offering comfort that none of the others could give by mere presence. "So did you like her?"

"I don't know." I confess. "At times I hated her, at times I liked her...but she always kept me confused and...and kind of helpless. I thought I had something with her, but she turned around and changed it every chance she got. She wasn't like Zane...and when she told me she loved me I wondered if Zane had ever loved me either, or if it had been just one long nothing."

"I'm not one long nothing, am I?" Ryou asks.

"No," I reply. "But since nothing comes in many guises, you could be and I just don't know it when I see it."

"Did you ever see it again?" Ryou inquires.

"I don't think I—well, maybe. Maybe I did," I tell him. "Maybe."

%

Fluffy: Ra! We fixed the him-her slipup in the last chapter.

**Akiko680**: Ehhehe. Sorry about the late update.

**Wingleader Sora Jade:** We are the queens of creepiness.

**Angel Yami-ko**: Really? *blinkblink* But there are so many better ones....*feels flattered*

**PanDora**: Isn't that always the way. *shrug*

**Saturn Imp**: Meh, sadness is underrated.

**Panda X. Bear**: Wow, long review. ^^ Thank you so much! And I'll try and update faster, I swear! 

**MeeLee**: The stuff with the present tense verbs is Bakura talking to Ryou, the stuff with perfect verbs is Bakura doing the flashback-narration thingie. Sorry for the confusion!

**BishounenzAngel**: Hiya! Thanks for reviewing!

**Dark Millenia**: Yeah, I'm kinda wishing that too. ^^;;

**cool**: Thankies!

**Aithril the Elf-Maiden**: Thanks! *goes on a sugar-high*

**Ice-Spirit Phoenix**: Creepy is good!

**Dark-necrophhia666**: *runs screaming from the Puppets*

**Yami hitokiri**: Pity Bakura! Yes!

**Starzpen**: *sweatdrop* Thank you!

**higashikaze**: *watches Bakura go hide and sulk in a corner* ....?

**r**: You're not rude, I like constructive criticism. Yeah, I was very meh-ish about how Zane turned out, and I'm kinda glad someone else was too. ^^ I tried to do better with Aya, but I backed myself into a bit of the corner with the plotstyle. Ah well. Thanks for reviewing!

**BakaNeko-Chan**: Yay! More sugar!

**happy yaoi lover**: Ut semper!

**Star Girl11**: As always!

**yukoma**: Uh...yeah. *sweatdrops*

**R Amethyst:** . He would have died. Messily. At the hands of a pissy redhead.

**Liviana**: I keep doing that! #$%@#$!!

**SweetMisery**: *gets all hopeful-like*

**Sailor Comet**: If he gets resurrected, you and Bakura can fight over him, ne?

Duel: Well. This seems quite popular. But, of course, it can only get better! *whips out the Review Stick of Doom* Riiiiiiiight?


	5. Darien

Fate: It lives. Rightoh, a couple of things to remember. First is to visit this link: www.   
Take out the space between www and ujournal.

Second is that this is a narrative. Bakura can't cover everything in an hour, and to accommodate for that, I will be creating a companion fic called **Kiokuryoku****.** He is telling this story to Ryou. It's not really a flashback as it is a storytelling device.

Disclaimer: Not ours. Read it.

&

Ryou blinks at me a couple times sleepily, then stiffens and looks anxiously at the clock. 

"Can't you go any faster?" he pleads softly.  

I too check the clock. "I'm going as fast as I can," I reply. Speaking in a normal tone seems outrageous now, and our voices drop to whispers, terrified and longing. "I'm leaving so much out..."

"But you're telling me something too. You're telling me so much, and I..." He swallows convulsively. "And I don't...I don't want to..."

I grab hold of him and don't let go, closing my eyes and burying my face in his hair. He believes me, believes with an aching passion that so resembles the screaming desperation to communicate something, anything to him... 

I sigh into the white strands pressing against my skin, feeling bright hot tears stinging on my eyelids. "Continue,"  Ryou murmurs into my shoulder. "Keep talking. Don't stop. Don't think about completion, or telling a proper story, or anything. Just keep talking until midnight. Keep talking until it's all over. Don't stop. Don't let me go. Just keep talking..." 

His voice cracks and trails off as his fingers dig into the muscles in my shoulders.  

I shudder. "After Aya...after Aya...it was...him." 

"Tell me."

... 

I drew in a deep breath, determined not to react at all. I forced myself to be still as I returned to this world with  knives in my hands and the taste of all three hosts' blood in my mouth.  

I opened my eyes and looked straight into the sights of a crossbow.  

A short, pale man was wearing my Ring over some very nicely tailored clothes. He was talking angrily, but I ignored him in favor of inspecting him, as I would have a potential 

victim in the streets all those years ago. Jewels glowed on his fingers and around his neck, as well as in piercings on his body. He was much more well-fed than I could ever have 

dreamed of being, and a general air of softness around him spoke of money to me. 

I looked at him dispassionately as my body became insubstantial. /Go ahead,/ I said softly, numbly. /I don't much care./ 

The bolt quivered in the wall, shuddering with impact. I didn't even bother to turn and look, merely watched dreamily as the man tried to shove me aside and instead went flailing through me to slam into the wall. I then did something I hadn't done in years. 

I retreated to the room in my soul that had housed me all throughout Micky's torment.  

I stumbled into the room blankly and sank down onto the pile of rags that had served me as a bed, curling in on myself and staring at the wall. With Zane, I had been able to forget everything about Micky, and with Aya I had forgotten everything but fear and insanity and living breathlessly on the edge of success and failure at all times. But now...I was doomed to be the hallucination of a rich man for four long years. 

Four long years... 

I wondered if possibly I could sleep for all that time. 

The door to my soul room slammed open and the man began screaming. 

I stared blankly as he rushed at me, hands flailing. I was quite honestly in a state of shock, 

and thus barely recognized that he was raining blows upon me and screeching incoherently. 

Finally his babble began resolving itself into the mental link that I had with all my hosts as his voice gave out. //Foul creature...begone from my mind! Out! Out, you heathen! I shall kill you! You are a worthless ghost and not fit to be near me!// 

I blinked hazily. /Don'tcha need a killer for hire?/ I asked. Anything to get me out of this empty hell, where mocking ghosts whirled around me and dragged me back into the darkness... 

The man stopped raving and flailing at me with an odd abruptness that should have warned me then and there of trouble. 

I was somewhat beyond caring at that point. 

//You will serve me?// he whispered, clutching my throat and staring into my eyes with a strange, intense fire. 

/You can speak like this with ease?/ I shot back. 

//The mind-voices subdue demons,// the man hissed. //This was passed down from ruler to ruler, until the cities fell and their bastard offspring rose to rule. I am one of their 

descendants, and I have the mind-voice to control...you.// 

My eyes widened. /Aya...Zane...Micky...which of you handed me off like a legacy to these people?/ 

//You speak Her name with the utmost casualness,// the man growled. //There are legends of the mystic queen's pet, a silver-haired, red-eyed summoner-mystic. Both the summoner and the mystic queen disappeared shortly after her city was restored. And I...I have the charm to subdue the summoner! All my life I have studied…" He lunged forwards, pulled me to my feet. "Serve me," he breathed, his accent of a dead language almost monstrous in its error. "Kill for me as you killed for the mystic queen."

I tried to shake him off and was rewarded with a sharp blow to the side of my head. "Do not fight me!"

"Let me go! How could you not be consumed by darkness on the spot? Let me go! You stupid, disgusting old man! Get your hands off me! I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you! Don't you dare touch me!" I was screaming, hysterical almost. It didn't help me though. For all his soft bearing, this was a strong man…and we were in our collective minds, where we were only as strong as our wills. 

And mine was easily broken.

Months of training, baiting, crowing, and torment later, I was a demon doll chained to his chair, without the ability to even retreat into my soul room. I could kill with a scant thought, summoning demons for him. I was ordered to love him selflessly and wildly, to accompany him wherever he went. He drew from me an amalgamation of what I had been to all my former hosts, and in a tiny, hidden part of my soul I welcomed it. I welcomed being commanded body and soul, I welcomed not having to have the responsibility for myself. I welcomed being a pampered, murdering doll if only my mind would disappear in the process.

He taught me his language and refused to speak to me in my own. He said once, in a fit of anger, that it was the language of the old, dead gods, and that he flouted them and their ways.

He told me that his name was Darien, early on. Later, he claimed to be the mystic king, the successor of the mystic queen. 

Once he told me he was God.

"…and so, you must understand that we can do nothing for you. We regret this deeply, but I do not have the funds. Please understand that if we could obtain them somehow, we would — "

"Shut up!" The woman who had come to see Darien snapped, cutting him off. "My lady doesn't want your excuses, she wants what's owed. There's a girl with your foul blood in her sweet body, and she's dying. Now sell one of your pretty rings, or even your pampered whore next to your chair, but don't give us your bullshit!"

I didn't even react to being called a pampered whore. It was what I was. I simply stared at the floor.

And waited.

"If your lady insists, we will indeed give her the gift of my pampered whore," Darien said thoughtfully. "However, the gift may not be quite what she thinks it is."

He rested one hand on the back of my neck.

I didn't even have to look up to summon a demon for him, though I flinched inside my mind at his touch on my skin and the sound of his voice when he called me his whore. 

"Perfection," Darien said when the woman dropped to the ground, her bones clinking on the tiles. He waved a messenger over to collect her remains and wheel them out, no doubt back to the one she'd served.

I stared at the blood rippling across the tile, my fingers slowly clenching in on themselves.

"Go," Darien said. "You want it, demon? Have it."

I slowly lowered my head to the floor and began licking at the blood, shame echoing forgotten in my mind.

He kept me like that, killing his business clients and opponents until he rose to the highest position in the city.

It took him years. Years of mind-numbing work for me, summoning demons, being forced to eat only human flesh, years of killing, years of being told I was nothing, years of being owned body and soul by a man who was no better than the little boy who'd put on my Ring and used the instrument of the gods as a mindless toy.

Years of being…I don't want to say.

Years of waiting to die.

I looked at the latest victim, then lowered my head to the ground and drank.

I'd tried to kill myself a couple times. It had never worked. I couldn't die without killing my other half first, and if my other half wasn't in the world yet…then tough luck for me.

I couldn't kill him.

I couldn't end it all.

So I counted years like days, drifting past quicker and quicker. Time was becoming irrelevant, as I'd found that I had first lived over a millennia ago. 

Small things don't stick in your memory when that happens.

He trained me like his heir, teaching me science and to read and the history of his kind. I learned how my world had been destroyed after Yami had reigned. I learned about how Egypt had been assimilated into the Roman empire and its culture and language spread. I learned how the old gods had fallen.

And when I learned that, I was sure that Kaisei would not reappear to save me from this hell.

Never believe anything you read. I was told that early on, in my days as a tomb robber. Tombs will be mislabeled. Most tomb robbers only know the essential signs, and wouldn't understand the complicated phrasing that priests use. Never trust what you read, because you don't know what they really mean.

I tried to explain this to Darien once. He hit me until I stopped talking. His beliefs weren't those of someone whose life was in constant danger. His were of someone who is secure in their knowledge, who has nothing to fear and everything to gain.

I wasn't sure if I could believe my eyes when I woke up one night and saw a tall man with red eyes shaking me awake.

"You don't exist," I whispered, my old language feeling rusty and dead on my tongue.

"Neither do you," he replied. "Will you miss this one?"

"You don't understand," I argued, not even struggling to sit up. I knew the chains wouldn't let me move from my position. "You don't exist. All the gods died."

"You never believed in them anyway, tomb robber. Heretic. Blasphemer. Thief. Sinner." Kaisei spoke my titles without rancor. "Murderer."

"Should I believe in them?" I asked.

"You don't have a choice," Kaisei said warningly. He held his hand over me, then pulled it up. I moved with it, my arms and legs moving through the shackles like air.

"I'd forgotten that," I murmured.

"You've forgotten everything," Kaisei said, gently drawing me to my feet and holding me upright. "Stand."

"I don't remember how," I breathed.

"Then hold on," Kaisei told me. He reached out his other hand and waved the Scales over Darien's prone body.

Darien woke up, noisily as always. "Eh? Wha? Take your hands off that demon, there! He's dangerous! Explain what you are doing in our room at once."

Kaisei withdrew his hand. "Potential pretender who may have desecrated the purity of the Millennium Ring, I now put you on trial. If you are truly the one destined to wear the Ring, as you may well be owing to the fact that you have not been incinerated upon your wearing of this sacred item, you will be granted eternal life and a wealth of power. However, you still may be a pretender and unworthy to continue life. If you are thus, then this servant of Seshat will terminate you immediately following your Judgment," Kaisei said, his voice devoid of emotion. "Are you ready to be put on trial?"

"I am God. There are no other gods before me," Damien said angrily. "Do not speak of the old ones!"

Black smoke gouted from his mouth to settle on one of the pans of the scale.

"Will you seal his destiny?" Kaisei asked me.

"If he is a pretender, let him die by my hands," I whispered. I clutched Kaisei's shoulders as blackness tore itself from my mouth and a knife materialized in my fingers.

I pushed off of Kaisei and lunged at Darien, the knife sinking into his heart. "I'll see you in Hell, God," I said, the room whirling around me as my fingers began to splutter and fizzle out of existence. "You and the pharaoh bastard. No one will be god on earth but me. No one!"

Darkness.

...

Ryou is huddled motionless on my lap. "I…I…that's horrible…"

"Now you understand," I whispered into his hair. "It's not just the pharaoh I hate…it's everyone. Everyone who owned me, everyone who broke me, everyone who…who destroyed me. every time I build myself back up, someone breaks me. I…I learned to stop building."

"Don't stop. Never stop," Ryou said. "I won't let you fall apart."

"You may not have a choice."

"That's not for either of us to decide," Ryou said softly. "Not anymore."

&

Fluffy: Well then. We're back. Dear god, the review replies…

**MeeLee**** –** I use Linux, so Microsoft Word isn't always available. Sometimes I write on other computers, like I'm doing today. Sorry.

**Wingleader**** Sora Jade – **Ssssh! ^_~ Oh, and thank you for the toothnumbing stuff!

**Hikari-neko**** – **Whoa, whoa, wait, there's still two more hikaris before Ryou…

**Yami-hitokiri**** – **I'm sorry, I took even longer this time. Horrible writer's block, I had.

**Saturn Imp –** Mmmyeah, that was kind of the point. ^^;;

**Panda X. Bear –** Yes, I took even longer this time, I'm very sorry! I was just having…problems.

**BishounenzAngel**** – **Thank you!

**cool – **Err. Hope I didn't make you regret your request.

**Sailor Comet – **Yep, three female hosts. I was trying for a rushed feeling there. It happened a couple thousands of years ago and Bakura doesn't have a lot of time, so he's crunching the less important things for Ryou's benefit. Check back on Kiokuryoku, it'll expand more on the 'crunched' bits of Yadonushi!

**Liviana**** – **Ahahaha…sorry, sorry. I also don't want to fill these chapters with less important stuff. I'm trying to stick to the one or two really important episodes per host. Like I said, Kiokuryoku will be full of things that Bakura skipped over!

**SweetMisery**** – **Heh, at least someone does.

**Dark Mystic Dragoness – ***suddenly feels very, very unsafe*

**R Amythest – **Oh, he does plenty of attacking. You'll see.

**Yukoma**** – **Yes, I do like having that part predictable. You know it's going to happen by the end of the first chapter, so it's not so much of a big focus as the rest of the chapter is. Sorry if it's annoying though, and thanks for the cookies!

**Silver Queen – **Yes, odd is a good word for this.

**Dawn Shadow – **Hopefully FF.net's fixed all these problems (YAY!) and thanks for your suggestions!

**EVIL-lolz-girl – **I'm glad someone out there likes blood and gore…

**Starzpen**** – **Oh good, I'm glad she came across that way. I liked her.

**higashikaze**** – **There you go!

**happy yaoi lover – **Sorry for the wait.

**DreamingChild**** – **Y'know, I never really thought of them as OC's. Hmm…

**Shinnyu**** Kudzu – **Co-writer? *blushes* Email me and…we'll talk. Or something.

**Kerei**** Kitsune – **Ooops, better update at KG too then, hadn't I…

**tsutsuji**** – **Yeah, there just isn't enough non-AU Egypt Arc-ish stuff. Although I'm not sure whether or not this counts as an AU…

**The Dark One – **Ehehe. Sorry about the wait, I really am…

**Melissa – **^_^ Yay, 9.5!

**ds**** –** Yay, it worked! Yes, he is confused, and I'm really trying to get that across. Hee.

Duel: Ooookay. See all those reviews? Yeah. Go add to them. Now.


	6. Mana

Fate: Do0t. Here ya go. Sorry for the wait. Oh, and everyone read Taikou and Beautiful Oblivion. Especially read Beautiful Oblivion if you like this story. Yes, I shamelessly self-plug. Go me.

Disclaimer: Nothing is ours. Well...okay, the psycho girl is. But eh, you can have her. Just ask first, so we can give you the proper sedatives.

* * *

"How many more?" Ryou asks. 

I swallow. "Two from the past, then..."

"Then me." He smiles. "Will you tell me what you remember about me, then?"

"I suppose." I sigh. "Our past, though..."

"It has to end with the present," Ryou says practically. "But let's deny the here and now for a little longer. You said there were two more."

I nod. "There were."

He slowly draws his hand through my hair, then rests his head on my shoulder. "Then who was next?"

"A dreamer..." I say haltingly. "A girl who wanted magic so badly she didn't know how to give it up."

...

//Oh wow! Oh my god! Oh wow! Oh my _god!//_

I was barely flung back into the real world before I was viciously attacked and glomped. 

//Oh my god! Are you real? You're _real!//_ A gasp. I opened my eyes hazily to see a girl with blond hair and voluminous clothes sitting on my chest. 

I rubbed my forehead. How the hell did all these people seem to be able to screech in my head? It was giving me a migraine. At least I wasn't old anymore. Or the slave of a disgustingly insane man.

"Shut _up,"_ I snapped.

The girl kept whimpering in her mind and chattering in some funny language, clutching the Ring around her neck. 

I squeezed my eyes shut, then reached out and pushed her off. While going insubstantial would have been much more satisfying, her mental squeals probably would have only intensified. 

The girl scrambled to her feet, undaunted, and ran from the room. I slumped to the floor and dropped my head into my hands.

I sighed. Five years with this idiot girl.

Why couldn't anyone _interesting_ ever put the fucking Ring on anymore?

/Dammit, Zane!/ I screamed internally. /You just _had_ to go and die and give me away to Aya, who gave me to that fucking bastard, who gave me to...to _this._ Dammit! Fuck you for putting me through this hell, Pharaoh!/ I slumped back to the ground, staring at the ceiling. There were candles suspended from the ceiling. /Seshat, great Lady, please...just get me the hell out of here. Don't do this to me. Don't make me wake up and live through hell. I'll be your servant. I'll be your _slave_. Don't do this.../ I knew it was futile, praying to a goddess who was pulling my strings for her own amusement. But I tried.

Gods, but I tried.

They found me like this, the girl and her family. She said she could understand my mind-speech, and assumed that I understood hers.

//So you'll be married to me! Because you're a magic prince! We have stories about people like you!//

I wanted to slit my throat. Fucking _married?!_ People like me didn't just _get_ married. You had to get divine permission, you had to find the money for the bride-price, you had to have land of your own... /You're kidding. If you're not, I'm going to fucking kill you./ I snarled.

She giggled. //Of course not, silly! Don't be afraid of me! Oh my god, a magic boy! I'm going to be married to a magic boy!//

They told me later that they thought the magic made me go mad, that being held captive gave me seizures. I tried to attack her. I tried to kill everyone. I didn't want to be a pampered whore again. I didn't want to destroy Zane's memory of breathless nights and hazy days. I didn't want to be a pet demon. I didn't want to be a slave. 

I didn't want to be anything but dead.

They bonded me to her with metal and marriage, so I followed her everywhere. They collared me and put me on a chain, and if I resisted, they hurt me. They tried to take away the Ring. Every time they saw it, they took it. Her guards didn't understand that I couldn't be parted from it.

They tied me down and broke me.

She was stroking my hair idly one day, combing it out lazily. //Such a pretty color,// she mused. //How did you get it like that?//

I glared at her.

She giggled. Reached over to her vanity table and dumped glitter in my hair. //C'mon, tell!//

/I'm fucking magic,/ I spat.

She brushed glitter along my hair, teasing the tangles out slowly with a comb. //Do you love me?//

/I hate you,/ I said truthfully.

//And why's that?// she demanded poutily.

/Because you made me your pretty little bed slave, your magic toy, your tamed angel. At least the others who captured me recognized that I was pure fucking _evil._/ I stared at her. /But you don't even do that./

She reached out and grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at her. I averted my eyes as she studied me slowly.

//You're not evil,// she decided. //You just hate so much you don't know how to do anything else. I want to teach you not to hate.//

/Then you'd better fucking let me go,/ I snapped.

She shrugged. //Papa would never approve.//

/You're a married woman!/ I said, exasperated.

//I'm not so rich that I can live on my own,// she said with a smile. //Besides, you're not really for me. That's just for show. You're for them, just like I am.//

/And you have no pity for me, then?/ I demanded. /No spark of mercy that will let you set me free?/

She shrugged. //No.// 

I scowled at her. She wasn't even wearing the Ring. She'd never worn it again after that first day. /And why is that?/

//Because it won't do me any good,// she declared. //Destiny is destiny. You were destined to stay here. I'm not going to let you go.//

/Destiny is a thing of fairy tales,/ I told her.

//So are you,// she replied dreamily, and released me to keep brushing at my hair. //So are you, my angel prince.//

/I have a name,/ I replied.

//Sssh,// she breathed. //Keep the dream real. You're my angel prince.//

I closed my eyes, furious tears pricking at my lids.

Insanity is so much better when you're the one who's mad.

I really didn't know what to do about her. She never knew my name, and didn't tell me hers. She wanted children. I didn't want anything from her at all. I screamed and cried and fought her when she tried.

I hurt her badly, once. She couldn't have children after that. I didn't care. I huddled in a corner of my soul room, clutching the Ring, livid with whip marks and desperate for oblivion. I wanted to die. I wanted them to kill me.

Apparently she had a bad infection and was sick for the better part of a year. No one bothered me then. No one dared come near me without her ability to tame me.

They thought only she could subdue me.

They were right.

I counted. Two years left. They were using the time system that Darien and Aya had used. I'd preferred our own. I didn't get where all the extra moons had come from. 

She healed in body, but her mind was even farther gone than normal. She still brushed my hair and caressed my body, her eyes blank, her thoughts half-delirious. She adored magic, adored it so much that she would never let me go.

I never talked back to her. I just slumped, unresponsive to her touch, tears of anger and paralysis coursing down my face.

It was sick and mind-numbing and I threw up whatever food they gave me until I was a wasted, pretty shell, covered in cosmetics and given my every desire – everything but to be let off that wretched chain. 

I was like a child.

I didn't understand what had happened to me, and I didn't know that I should have cared. Not anymore. Two thousand years old, and reduced to...this.

//Do you love me, magic prince?// she whispered.

I stared at the floor.

//Do you love me?//

/I hate you beyond your wildest imaginings,/ I breathed, too exhausted to say anything else. /You will never understand just how much I hate you./

//Is it because I didn't die when you killed me?// she inquired, her mental voice a mocking sing-song.

/It's because you won't let a dead thief die,/ I shot back. /I'm dead. Dead!/

//No!// she screamed. //No! You're alive! I'll never let you die! You're alive! You're alive because I say so!//

/And what about you?/ I asked exhaustedly.

//I am alive because you are alive, and without you I am nothing. We were meant for each other.//

Some internally rebellious part of me rolled its eyes at such drivel. /If that's true, why don't you wear my Ring?/

She shrugged and smiled vaguely. //They took it away.//

/Do you know what happens to people like you?/ I finally burst out.

//Tell me a story, magic prince,// she breathes, sitting up in her invalid's bed and clutching my chain tighter.

/Another tamed angel bound to a goddess's whims and wills comes and frees me at the end of my sentence. I am paying for my sins./ I looked over my shoulder and, for the first time in a long time, smiled. /Do you want to know what my sins are?/

//Tell me!// she gasped. //Oh my god! Did you overthrow a cruel government that deprived you of your rightful position?//

My smile intensified. 

I told her my story, in full gory detail, talking on relentlessly even when she began to scream and cry. I was still talking when they dragged me away and locked me in a stone chamber under her room, my chain attached to the wall.

I was still talking when a man walked through the door and came to stand in front of me.

"Am I a savior now?" he whispered.

I looked up as he gently covered my mouth. "You..." I whispered against his fingers.

"It has been five years," Kaisei said formally. "You know what happens."

"Five years...already?"

He nodded. "Come."

I stood up, then collapsed under the impossible weight of the collar. I had to be carried, these days. 

"Ku," he muttered, his fingers tracing the metal around my neck. "Can't you remember how to get out of this?"

I shook my head weakly. "No..."

"Hm." He pulls me up sharply, and the collar falls to the ground, empty. "Now we go meet the one who wears the Ring."

"She's never worn it after that one day," I said, as though I wanted her to live.

I wanted to make sure that she'd die.

"That's all right," Kaisei reassured me.

"Good," I hissed.

"You don't want her to be the true wearer?" he asked.

I shook my head violently. "I'd rather die. I'd rather have died two thousand years ago rather than been in this hell for five years."

"We don't get that sort of choice," Kaisei said, drawing me into the floor and through a swirling dark haze. "No one has a choice in this matter but the ones who pull our strings," he added with a glance at the ceiling as we materialize in her room.

Kaisei looked at her sadly. "She's quite mad."

"So am I."

She sat up, rubbing her eyes hazily. She seemed about to call out to me, but Kaisei interrupted her.

"Potential pretender who may have desecrated the purity of the Millennium Ring, I now put you on trial. If you are truly the one destined to wear the Ring, as you may well be owing to the fact that you have not been incinerated upon your wearing of this sacred item, you will be granted eternal life and a wealth of power. However, you still may be a pretender and unworthy to continue life. If you are thus, then this servant of Seshat will terminate you immediately following your Judgment," Kaisei said softly. "Are you ready to be put on trial?"

She frowned. //I don't understand...where's your collar, magic prince?// She opened her mouth and pointed at me, crying out in her own tongue. Black fire gouted from her mouth to pool on one of the pans of the Millennium Scales. Kaisei had produced them while talking.

"Will you seal her destiny?" Kaisei inquired.

"If she is a pretender, let her die by my hands," I spat. Blackness ghosted onto the scales and I clutched the knife in my withered hands. "I hope you burn forever," I snarled as I launched myself at her. /Tell me your name!/ I screamed as the knife hit her chest.

//Mana,// she gasped. //Magic – // she began, her eyes dimming. Her eyelids drooped shut as my fingertips began fizzling.

"She's just another in a line of pretenders," Kaisei said softly. "Does that sadden you?"

I hung my head, the boiling feeling oozing up along my limbs. "No...it saddens me that it _doesn't._"

...

Ryou keeps stroking my hair, his fingers brushing my tears and smearing them across my cheekbones. "Was it all just one long hell, then?"

I close my eyes. "No...no, the girl before you...saved a soul that I didn't know I had."

Ryou's fingers tighten. "Then I thank the gods for her. Tell me...tell me about the one before me."

* * *

Fluffy: Whee! Now on to IoV and to get started on Nameless at last! Tra la la la la!

~~

**Schizothief: **Yay, extra points for evil-guy offing!

**higashikaze:** Umm...Kleenex? 

**MeeLee: **Hee. ^_^

**Liviana: **I'm hoping these little vignettes are vivid enough to make y'all happy...

**Yami hitokiri:** For chyuu, an update! *hides from rocket launcher*

**Inktail: **Sorrysorry! Here's the new chapter!

**SweetMisery: **Well, he _did_ die, so...yeah. ^^;;

**SilverAndBlackFlames: **Thank you! *blushes*

**Silver Mirror: **Only two chapters to go!

~~

Duel: You know what to do. Now go out and do it. Mwa. Ha. Ha.


	7. Perdita

Fate: Gwa. Here it is. Meef. One more chapter, then we're done.

Disclaimer: Not ours, go away.

* * *

I blink at Ryou. "Her…"

"And then me," Ryou finishes. "Ten minutes left, yami."

I nod. "She was…I don't know how to describe her, really. She was violent. Infectious. And…very human," I finish lamely. "More so than Aya. More so than anyone else I've ever met."

"Even me?" Ryou asks.

I smile. "You're beyond human."

He ducks his head slightly in response. "So I am. Tell me…"

…

It was the first time I hadn't woken up fighting or screaming or defiant. I just lay there on the floor, weak and broken.

Someone's breath touched my hair and someone knelt beside me. A girl's voice sounded in my ear, gentle at first, then more insistent.

A small, vague spark of anger stirred in what was left of my soul.

I reached up and grabbed her hand. I was physically fine, but wasted mentally. "Do you understand this?" I asked, summoning my memories of Darien and his intensive language training.

I heard a gasp, then a girl with a painfully familiar look to her moved into view, sitting over me. "Y…yes," she stammered. "L…listen, I'm going to go get you some help…you just appeared out of nowhere when I was walking. How did you get into these woods?"

"You're not going to get me help," I said, sitting up quickly. "Don't help me," I added. "I don't want other people using me like the fuckers who had me in the past."

The girl looked at me expressionlessly. Her eyes were liquid black, her features classical and tan, and her hair straight, coarse, and black. She screamed of Egypt to me.

"Where are you from?" I demanded.

She stared back at me. "I'm a slave. I don't know these things. Where did _you_ come from? One of the camps?"

"What camps?" I asked, still confused.

She poked my face hard. "Where people lily-white as you come from," she snapped.

I lashed back, nearly hitting her as she leapt away with a fighter's grace. "It's not my fault I'm this pale! I used to be darker than you could ever be, little girl, and I've been enslaved for longer than your entire family line's been alive!"

She glared at me, clutching the Ring to her chest. It was dirty and covered in grime.

"Where did you get my Ring?"  I asked after a pause of mutual anger.

She jerked her head to a spot behind me. "There."

I turned, then gasped, leapt back, and nearly cowered behind a tree before I got a hold of myself.

There was a skeleton there with its head torn off and thrown across the clearing. It had been buried fairly deeply, but the uprooting of a nearby tree had obviously unearthed it. I bit my lip and remembered the savage triumph of desecrating the body of the older pharaoh, then hastily shoved that from my mind as I remembered what I'd been put through for the past thousands of years.

"My master sent me out to get it," the girl said, looking annoyed. "Everyone who's put it on died. Like that skeleton, I guess. There were more bodies, but they got taken away."

"Then why are you wearing it?" I asked, moving to my feet and realizing to my chagrin that I was only about thirteen in physical age.

"I'd rather die than be a slave," she hissed. "Don't you know the feeling?"

I started to laugh. "Oh, gods, I know…"

She stared at me. "How long have you been enslaved for?"

I smirked lazily. "For thousands and thousands of years, for my living sins," I whispered.

"You're my age," she remarked skeptically.

"Oh, no I'm not," I shot back. "Now. What's your name?"

"Number six," she said simply. "I'm my master's sixth slave."

I almost started laughing again at the irony of it. "What's your real name?"

"Haven't got one," she said sullenly. "Don't see why I should tell you."

"Because, number six, I'm going to set you free," I said carelessly. "Because no one's going to own your soul now but me."

Her forehead wrinkled. "What do you mean?"

I took two steps forwards and grabbed the Ring, rubbing off some of the dirt. "You wanted to know where I came from? I came from inside this thing, where I've been sleeping ever since my last mistress died. I've been kept as a slave for thousands of years, and I'm not going to keep going now. So we're going away from anyone who might try and use me. That includes your people."

"That's impossible," she scoffed.

Weak and dilapidated as I was, I almost didn't have the strength to keep up the devil-may-care attitude. "You don't believe me? Fine. Go ahead. Go be a slave. Condemn me to six more fucking years of hell!" I screamed at her. "Go sacrifice yourself, and me too. I'm offering you _freedom!"_

She stared. "Really?"

I nodded, mentally and slowly running through the old demon-summoning chants. "Take me back to your village, number six, and tell me your real name."

"One minute," she said, and ran back to the skeleton. She surveyed it silently for a minute, then picked up the skull and trotted back over to me. "My name is Perdita. Mention it to anyone and you get a flogging from my master, who alone holds the keys to my soul through my name. Or he did."

I smiled, wide and reckless. "A flogging will be the least of anyone's troubles soon."

I destroyed the village where she was held captive, and part of the forest around it. I incinerated the skeleton of the pretender, though Perdita kept the head. I burned and burned and burned until I fell unconscious, and vanished into my soul room for ages.

Perdita had all but dismissed me as a god or hallucination of some sort when I reappeared, and I spent nights in fervent vigil to Ma'at and Seshat for allowing me to not only destroy a whole area of people who would have enslaved me, but to sleep away a year after it. In most people, a year would have been an age to sleep. For me, it was a brief but welcome vacation, when compared with the hundreds of years I spent comatose inside the Ring.

I thanked the demons every day for still coming when I called them, even when I wasn't their rightful master.

I told Perdita everything that first time I woke up. She was fascinated by Aya, who she thought paralleled her in everything but her level of ambition. I didn't see the resemblance. Aya had been desperately, painfully undead. She wasn't alive, but she wasn't dead either. Perdita was alive. Alive, and very definitely Egyptian. We weren't far from Egypt, if she'd been sold from there.

I wanted to go.

I wanted to spit on the pharaoh's tomb and live in the desert and steal things to survive and cry late at night in the melted wreck of my old home. I wanted Egypt, with the smell of the sand and the overwhelming Nile-stink and papyrus and perfume in the hot air. It was cold here. It was cold everywhere. I wanted to go home, and by the time I convinced Perdita of it, we only had four years left.

I didn't tell her about her deadline.

It didn't seem fair.

Even when we had long, empty times of traveling, when she aged painfully quickly on the road, I never told her that little end of the story.

Five years passed before we made it to Egypt. Five years in total of my life on this earth once more.

Maybe I'll tell you more about them sometime.

We followed the Nile,  searching for the palace. I lost track of days, then, without anything to mark my way.

That's the funny thing about deserts. Anything can happen there one day, and the next day, you'd never see a trace of it.

Not even the fall of civilizations.

I knew where things were, but they were gone. Buried. Lost. I spent aching nights clawing through the sand looking for something, anything.

I couldn't find a thing.

Perdita couldn't keep me sane, but she kept me at least in one piece. She restrained me when I clawed at myself, quieted me when I screamed, and fought off the jackals who I would have let feast willingly on my flesh.

"I'm old," I whispered one night.

"You are," Perdita acknowledged, her face outlined by fire. Desert nights are terribly cold, but they feel different than the cold of anywhere else. This is just a lack of heat. Anywhere else, cold is a tangible thing, something of its own. Something you recognize and embody. In Egypt, when Ra hides himself for the day, he takes the warmth with him, because he's a god and he can do that.

I always thought that it was a little selfish of him, even though most of the time losing the heat was a relief.

I didn't burn, I tanned, much to Perdita's incredulity. My old, ragged clothes started to fit again and look natural.

I realized that I was regressing, going back to living as I normally had for all those years back then. And I also knew that one night, everything would be turned upside down again.

I just hadn't expected it to be so bloody _soon._

But when you're measuring time by decades and generations and centuries, a matter of months barely matters at all.

"Perdita…it's still…" I muttered, rolling over.

Perdita didn't have orange eyes.

"You're not Perdita," I said dumbly. "Oh God."

"What do you think about this one?" Kaisei asked, his switch to my native tongue delightfully welcome. "The real thing?"

I sat up, passing one hand over my eyes. In my preoccupation with the time and my hatred of the past few hosts, I'd not remembered that eventually one host would be the true thing. I'd only ever focused on the death.

"I…don't know," I whispered.

Kaisei looked at the ground. "You should."

"I don't want to admit it," I replied.

"Are you getting squeamish?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

I shook my head. "Tired."

"After this, you can rest," he said softly, going over to Perdita.

She opened her eyes and sat up. "Huh?"

"I meant to tell you," I said quietly, going back to Perdita's language. "But I didn't know it would be so soon."

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Potential pretender who may have desecrated the purity of the Millennium Ring, I now put you on trial. If you are truly the one destined to wear the Ring, as you may well be owing to the fact that you have not been incinerated upon your wearing of this sacred item, you will be granted eternal life and a wealth of power. However, you still may be a pretender and unworthy to continue life. If you are thus, then this servant of Seshat will terminate you immediately following your Judgment," Kaisei told her. "Are you ready to be put on trial?"

She blinked, then looked at me. "It was too good to last, you know. Even the gods don't condone having two slaves running around on their own." Black smoke hissed from her mouth as she spoke, drifting onto the Millennium Scales.

"And will you seal her destiny?" Kaisei asked.

"If she is a pretender, let her die by my hands," I said, looking directly at Perdita. I translated for her as the knife materialized in my hands under the dark cloud produced by my speech.

She grabbed my hands as I drew nearer, forcing me to push the knife into her chest.

"Why did you do that?" I demanded.

She smiled. "I wanted to be free."

I took one step back, then another as her body dropped to the ground.

"The sand will preserve her," Kaisei said gently.

I nodded, feeling my flesh sizzle away and dissolve into the Shadow Realm. "It's what she wanted her entire life," I replied. "So I'm not angry because of that." I lifted my head and smiled. "I'm angry because I got so close to home, and then had it taken away. I'll rule one day. I'll control everything," I said. "I'll be the master, not the slave, and nothing like this will ever happen…"

I think my mouth dissolved right about then, because blackness washed over my eyes.

…

Ryou looks confused. "What did she do to save your soul?"

I pull him closer. "She brought me back to Egypt…and she made me remember that someone, in the end, isn't going to just die after a few years. It made pretending to be alive have a little merit, this time…"

* * *

Fluffy: And there you have it. The last of the past hosts. And I might even be able to get something else started. I originally thought I'd write the last chapter of Yadonushi, but…enh. Maybe Torikorosu. We'll see. Oh, and we got 100 reviews! Yay!

**SweetMisery****: **Yes, he did.

**Scarlet Oasis:** I'm meaning 'soulmate' as in someone who completes Bakura not only in looks and in random narcissistic snogs, but in thoughts, abilities, ethics, the like. Someone who makes him whole, rather than using him as a shell. Something like that. Glad you like!

**Higashikaze****: **Well, there ya go. She's dead. ;;

**Rowan Girl:** Sorry for the wait.

**Liviania****:** Ah, sorry, sorry. sweatdrop

**Inktail****:** Mana was just…eesh. We had to bleach out our brains after that one.

**kit[****kat****]: **Thank you! blushes

**Raiknii****: **Heh. You've read IoV, yes?

**DreamingChild****:** Hmm, maybe that's it…I haven't updated in ages, which could do the trick.

**Yami**** Hitokiri:** Well, think about it. Some omnipotent superpower prettyboi pops out of a gold pendant. Not everyone goes for the fangirl approach – and those that do end up like Mana. --;;

**Sailor Comet: **Yea, that about describes them. And the state of my mind after writing them. =.=;;

**Kerei**** Kitsune: **Sorry I took so long, I had a bad two weeks! ;;

**Inverse-chan:** Sankyuu!

**lilmatchgirl****: **Yeah, I figured there was a reason. A fairly big reason. Hence, I expanded on it. ;;

Duel: Well. 100. Exactly one hundred, actually. We seem to be off by 7 between the stats page and this one. Which doesn't seem to be uncommon. But commentary aside, add to the number! ONLY ONE MORE CHAPTER LEFT!


	8. Ryou

Fate: Well, well, well. We've made it all the way to the end. Congratulations and thanks to everyone involved.

Disclaimer: La la la la! I'm not listening!

* * *

Two pairs of eyes turn to the clock.

"Tell me one last story," Ryou begs. "One little story about me."

I take a deep breath. Squeeze my eyes shut. Open them and look at him.

"One last story," I agree, and try to begin.

...

I opened my eyes and looked straight into a mirror.

Hang on. My eyes weren't green.

What the...?

I flung myself into a sitting position and grabbed my not-reflection. Why do you look like me?I yelled. My not-reflection gaped at me, then spoke tremulously in a tongue I'd never heard. He turned and looked at the door behind him.

Memories of Mana flooded me, spurring me to jump across the room and clap a hand across his mouth. No! Don't tell anyone about me! Don't let them make me a slave!

/Wh-wh-who are you?/

I stared. The kid stared back. /How did I...?/

It's a gift you have now,I invented. Tell me. Where did your hair colour come from? Your skin colour? Why do you look like me?I hissed.

/I d-don't know,/ the boy stammered. He was young – and so, I realized to my disgust, was I. Young and terrified.

Maybe it was the big, scared eyes. Or maybe it was because he looked like me. I don't know. I just felt...protective. Weirdly so. Protective like I hadn't felt since I was younger than he was now, towards people long dead and buried.   
I looked at my hands, at my body. Seven years...I sighed. It just keeps getting worse, doesn't it?

/What?/

I almost smiled, and had no idea why. Never mind. Now listen. I'm going to be stuck in your mind for a long time. Don't tell anyone about me.

/Why?/

I sighed impatiently. Because not everyone is as sweet and innocent as you,I snapped. You're not going to hurt me. Yet.

The boy looked at me for a long moment. /And how do you know that?/

I looked back. I don't. Now. What's your name?

/Bakura Ryou./

I stiffened. Stared. That's...interesting,I said carefully.

/Interesting?/ Again with that inquisitive stare. /Why's that?/

Bloody curious kid. Because my name's Bakura.

...

"You convinced me I was schizophrenic," Ryou says, poking me. "You – what's that?"

I crane my neck, my heart in my throat. "You're early," I whisper.

Kaisei shakes his head. "Your clock is slow."

"Yami? Yami, I don't understand what you're saying," Ryou murmurs in my ear. "Should I?"

"Don't worry about it," I reply softly. "Well?" I switch languages again, looking over at Kaisei.

"Yami," Kaisei repeats. "Unusual nickname."

"Does anyone ever call _you_ that?" I challenge.

A small smile tugs at his lips. "Perhaps."

"Don't you have any pity?" I wonder.

He laughs, his orange eyes glowing in the dimly lit room. "Bakura, the tomb robber we all loved to hate...Bakura, you're asking me about pity?" He shakes his head slowly. "None of us have pity. We all failed our pharaoh, and we will all pay the price."

"I wasn't in his employ," I snarl.

"But you were. Just by living, you were," Kaisei points out. "And by thwarting him, you joined us all in this eternal hell."

"The priest escaped," I spit.

"And so did the pharaoh," Kaisei replies. "Did you think he was going through this charade too? No. It's just for us. The ones he didn't trust so much, the ones he didn't count as family."

"He _destroyed my life._" I gently push Ryou aside and rise to my feet, stalking around to face Kaisei. "He murdered everyone I loved, then bound me to a goddess as a puppet! He killed me, then brought me back to life seven times. And he destroyed my life seven times. And now it's going to be eight."

"Listen," Ryou says shakily from behind me. "I don't know what's going on, or what either of you are saying. But Yami's been telling me the stories. All six of them. And it's never ended well. Never."

Kaisei looks at me blankly. "What's he saying?"

The role of translator is not one I relish or plan on sustaining. "That he knows what's going to happen to him."

Kaisei smiles. "You never know. This time it could be different."

"And why would that be?" I demand. "Why the hell would it suddenly be different, just because I want it more than ever?"

"Do you really want it more than ever?" Kaisei asks, an odd light in his eyes.

"Yes! Of course I do!" I snap.

"More than the lives of your other hosts? The ones you had to murder?" Kaisei folds his arms, the Scales dangling from his left hand. "Do you hate them all so much, that you would take one life before all of theirs?"

"I could only choose one anyway," I whisper, looking at my hands. The blood was there. I just couldn't see it.

"Did you want them all to die?" Kaisei asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

I look up, biting the inside of my lip hard. It's a move I learned young to take away distractions and outside pain. It hurts, but no one else can see that you need it. It's your own little secret.

"No," I answer.

Ryou scrambles around the couch and parks himself between Kaisei and me. "Okay. I understand you two have history. I understand the whole Ancient-Egyptian-thing must be a lot of fun. But I'm confused as hell, and since I'm going to cark it in about a minute, someone _humour_ me." He glares at Kaisei. "What. Is. Going. On?"

"Kaisei is baiting me," I explain. "He wants to know if I'd prefer the lives of any of the others over you. If I wanted them all to die."

"And?" Ryou breathes.

"No and no," I tell him. Right. Can you both understand me?

/Yes,/ Ryou says.

We both look expectantly at Kaisei. Who looks expectantly back.

"Bloody hell," I growl. "Is there any way to get through this with clarity?"

"You never worried about clarity before," Kaisei points out.

"You didn't prolong it before," I retort. "You just swept in, did your funky little thing, prayed to Ma'at, and hey presto, I've skewered another host and am disappearing off the face of the earth for another few centuries."

"Have you ever prayed to Her?" Kaisei asks.

"Who, Ma'at?"

"No. Seshat. Your own Lady." Kaisei smiles. "You might find it interesting."

"I'll keep that in mind when I'm _trapped in limbo after I kill my host!"_ I take a step back towards Ryou defensively, though whether it's for my own sake or for his, I'm uncertain.

Kaisei considers my reaction. "Are you impatient to get this over with?"

"No! Yes!" I grit my teeth and glare at the judge. "I don't know. I don't _want_ to know!"

Kaisei unfolds his arms and holds out the Scales invitingly. But he's not looking at me anymore...

Ryou gently pushes me aside and takes a step forward. "Well," he finally says. "Whatever you're going to do to me...do it." He holds his hands out palm-up. "Enough of this torment."

"What's he saying?" Kaisei asks me, almost mockingly.

"What do you think?" I reply. "Whatever you're going to do to him, do it."

Kaisei's orange eyes darken. "If you insist." He releases the Scales and smiles. "Potential pretender who may have desecrated the purity of the Millennium Ring, I now put you on trial. If you are truly the one destined to wear the Ring, as you may well be owing to the fact that you have not been incinerated upon your wearing of this sacred item, you will be granted eternal life and a wealth of power. However, you still may be a pretender and unworthy to continue life. If you are thus, then this servant of Seshat will terminate you immediately following your Judgement." The smile disappears from Kaisei's face, replaced by a blank mask. A judge's face at a murder trial. The face of one who has seen so much death, one more won't mean a thing.

So much death.

So many murderers.

There is no pity for us.

"Are you ready to be put on trial?"

Ryou looks at me. Looks at Kaisei. "Do I have to say anything?"

The smoke from his mouth is black.

Everything goes hollow and empty, including me. The voices around me, the ground, the air. I can no longer feel.

_...just another murder..._

"Will you seal his destiny?" Kaisei asks. His face is still expressionless.

"If he is a pretender, let him die by my hands," I grind out.

And stare.

The smoke produced by my words is white.

I look at my hands. The knife is there, sitting harmlessly in my palm. Engraved on the blade is a woman holding a feather and a scroll.

Seshat.

I think my legs give way. I don't know. All I'm sure of is that I'm kneeling in front of Kaisei, who is looking thoughtfully at the whirling Scales. "This servant of Ma'at witnesses this Judgement and pronounces the mortal True."

"Wh-what is going on here?" Ryou finally whispers, staring wide-eyed at the knife in my hand. His gaze shifts to the Scales still spinning around in front of Kaisei. "Am...am I going to die?"

"The Judgement is concluded," Kaisei says. He reaches out and touches the Scales, halting their movement. The smoke on both pans dissolves, leaving gold glitter scattered across the carpet. "Your contract is broken, Seshat's toy-no-longer. She has taken pity on you, where no pity was thought possible. You, worst of blasphemers. Your suffering is not what redeemed you," he cautions. "Her pity is."

"I thought the gods had no pity," I finally manage to say.

"I would not challenge it," Kaisei replies with a hooked smile.

I slowly shake my head, still unable to quite comprehend what is happening. "No."

"My business here is concluded," Kaisei says, taking the Scales from the air and tucking them into his robes.

"W-wait!" I burst out, reaching for him with one hand. "Will I...ever see you again?"

"Do you need to?" Kaisei replies. "If you do, then perhaps you will. Perhaps you will," he repeats thoughtfully.

The floor ripples, and he slowly melts through it.

"Yami..." Ryou whispers. I feel a slight, delicate touch on one shoulder. "Yami...?"

"It's over." I slowly lower the knife to the ground, unwilling to simply cast it aside. "I'm free."

"It's over...?" Ryou asks.

I slowly turn to behold my hikari, sand-white and shaking. "It's over," I reply. "No more death. No more enslavement. No more puppetry on someone else's strings."

Ryou stretches out a shaking hand to me. "You're not going to kill me?"

I close my eyes and bite the inside of my lip hard again. No.

Ryou flings himself at me blindly, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and crying silently.

"D-don't do that...you don't have to do that," I mutter.

"I almost _died!_" Ryou protests. "You almost vanished for god knows how long!"

"But I didn't!" I slowly reach up and touch his hair, knotting my fingers in it. "I'm still here."

"Yami..." Ryou sighs and relaxes. "Don't ever leave me."

"I won't. I found you, and I'm not letting you go," I tell him. "You're mine...for eternity. _My yadonushi._"

How do you end a story?

Especially a story like this?

**_.owari._**

* * *

Fluffy: All right. First off, thanks to everyone who reviewed, critiqued, poked, bugged, flamed, whatever. We love you all anyway. Second off, there will be a sequel called **Kiokuryoku.** It will be a series of vignettes and memories that weren't covered in **Yadonushi.** We are taking requests for things you want to know more about. For more information on **Kiokuryoku**, go there is title art! We'll try and scan it and post a link sometime soon. It displays a picture of every host. Be happy. HAPPY! And THANK YOU ALL!

**Inverse-chan:** Sorry for the wait! School ended most inconveniently.

**TaleneIsMyYami:** sweatdrop Uhh...careful you don't break anything...meep?

**DreamingChild:** ;; Hee. Sorry.

**yla/all4him:** 'ere ya go!

**MeeLee:** Hey presto!

**Pork Steak the Grande:** Your name amuses me. Thanks!

**Kerei Kitsune:** Thank you!

**vixinkitsune:** Mana was creepy to write. But Darien was ickier. Icky. flails

**Liviania:** Finals...over...EVIL...

**lj:** Thanks! Sorry for the wait. ;;

**Tuulikki:** Haunting, eh? I like that.

**Scarlet Oasis:** No problem at all. I stuck Perdita as one of the last hosts mainly so I'd keep my interest, because I really _wanted_ to write her. Thanks!

**Sailor Comet:** EXACTLY! Mwahaha. Yesss.

**Shinnyu Kudzu:** You can hurt Darien. Please. Please. Please.

**Saturn Imp:** I'm not that evil. Nor am I talented enough to kill him off without this whole thing dissolving into random angsty melodrama. ;; I go with what I have.

**russle:** Sorry for the wait. Really!

**Pyx:** Done and done!

Duel: Well. sigh You know the drill. You've been doing it well enough for a while now. So review, and goodbye! See you in **Kiokuryoku**!


End file.
